Shourya Saini clinches silver, India’s 13th shooting medal at Deaflympics

India’s Shourya Saini won silver in the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Men’s event at the 25th Summer Deaflympics in Tokyo. He broke qualification records but finished second to Germany’s Erik Matthias Hess. Kushagra Singh Rajawat placed sixth, while Mahit Sandhu returns tomorrow

Hyderabad: India’s Shourya Saini clinched silver in the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Men’s event, making it the 13th medal for the country in shooting at the ongoing 25th Summer Deaflympics in Tokyo.

Shourya, the current world champion, broke his own world deaf qualification record and created a new Deaflympics world record en route to the finals. He shot 450.6 in the finals but was 9.2 short of Germany’s Erik Matthias Hess, who won the gold medal by breaking both the Deaf World finals record and the Deaflympics record. Dmytro Petrenko of Ukraine claimed the bronze medal.

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In the finals, Shourya scored 151.0 in the kneeling series of 15 shots, followed by 151.1 in the prone series. He then hit 99.3 in the first 10 shots of the standing series, followed by 9.6, 9.9, 9.5, 10.3 and 9.9 in the elimination stage to secure the silver medal. The other Indian shooter in the final, Kushagra Singh Rajawat, finished sixth with a score of 408.8.

Earlier in qualification, Shourya broke both the existing Deaf World Record and the Deaflympics record with a combined score of 584-32x. He shot 196 in kneeling, 194 in prone and 194 in standing. Kushagra scored 190 in kneeling, 196 in prone and 189 in standing to qualify for the finals in sixth place with a combined score of 575-22x.

Mahit Sandhu and Natasha Joshi will return for the Women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions event tomorrow, with Mahit aiming to add to the three medals she has already won in Tokyo.