Indian shooters create history with record 50 gold medals at Asian championship

India registered its best-ever performance at the Asian Shooting Championship in Shymkent, winning 50 gold medals to top the tally. The senior and junior shooters both impressed with historic results across Olympic and non-Olympic events

Hyderabad: Curtains were drawn at the 16th Asian Shooting Championship (all events) in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, and after 12 exhilarating days of competition, the Indian team registered its best-ever showing, finishing with an unprecedented 50 gold medals to top the tally — also a first in the history of the premier continental championship.

Particularly pleasing was the senior team’s performance in the 15 Olympic events across rifle, pistol and shotgun disciplines, where Indian shooters won six gold, two silver and three bronze medals, finishing behind global powerhouse China, who won eight of those golds, with hosts Kazakhstan picking up the other.

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“It is a spectacular performance and it is quite clear that the confidence of the shooting ecosystem is sky-high and significantly boosted by our performance at the Paris Olympics. Particularly pleasing is the performance of the juniors, which tells you that Indian shooting has just begun and greater things are sure to come in the near future,” said a pleased Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo, President, National Rifle Association of India (NRAI).

India ended the championship just short of the 100-medal mark, with 26 silver and 23 bronze medals to go with the 50 gold. The hosts were second with 70 medals and 21 gold, while China was third overall with 15 gold and 37 medals.

The highlights of the seniors’ performance included two-time Olympian Elavenil Valarivan’s second Asian crown (she also won a double gold partnering Arjun Babuta in the mixed team event) in women’s air rifle with an Asian record score, Neeru Dhanda’s first-ever Asian Championship gold for India in women’s trap, Sift Kaur Samra’s maiden Asian title in women’s 50m rifle 3 positions (3P) and Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar’s successful defence of his men’s 3P title.

Indian junior shooters also reiterated the depth the country has in the sport by completely dominating all the Olympic events, winning 10 golds along with four silver and four bronze medals.

The other golds came in the youth competitions, team events as well as in non-Olympic events. Former world champion Ankur Mittal, for example, won the men’s double trap gold with a world record score of 107, while Rio Olympian Gurpreet Singh struck gold in the men’s 25m standard pistol event.