Sift Kaur Samra wins first Asian crown with 50m Rifle 3p gold

Olympian Sift Kaur Samra claimed her maiden Asian title in the women’s 50m Rifle 3P at Shymkent, while India’s juniors added six golds, two silver, and a bronze to the tally

Hyderabad: Olympian Sift Kaur Samra won her first Asian crown, clinching the women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions (3P) gold at the 16th Asian Shooting Championship in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, on Tuesday.

Sift’s class, experience and expertise, especially in the Standing position, came through in the women’s 3P final as she shot 459.2 to leave young Chinese hope Yang Yujie 0.4 short, after ending the first Kneeling position in seventh place.

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India’s juniors also picked up six golds, two silver and one bronze, including four team golds, on what was effectively day nine of competitions with the women’s 3P, men’s 25m rapid-fire pistol and the trap men and women shooters doing the honours.

Anushka Thokur in 50m 3P women and Sabeera Haris in trap women won individual golds, while Aryavansh Tyagi won silver in men’s trap and Sameer Gulia claimed bronze in men’s 25m rapid-fire pistol.

With two more Olympic event finals left — men’s 25m rapid-fire pistol and trap mixed team — India and China are now in a race for supremacy, with each having bagged six golds.

Earlier, Sift combined with Ashi Chouksey (586) and Anjum Moudgil (578) for the team gold in women’s 3P as well, with a tally of 1753, three clear of the Chinese team.

In the junior women’s 3P, Anushka Thokur won the gold with a score of 460.7, five points ahead of Korea’s Sehee Oh who took silver. The other Indians in the final, Mahit Sandhu and Prachi Gaikwad, finished fifth and sixth with scores of 414.7 and 413.9.

In the 25m rapid-fire pistol junior event, Sameer Gulia secured bronze with a score of 21 in the finals, after qualifying with 576. Korea’s Geonwoo Son won gold, while Kazakhstan’s Kirill Tsukanov took silver.

Lonato World Cup mixed team bronze medalist Sabeera Haris and 15-year-old Addya Katyal ensured a 1-2 finish for India in the trap women junior discipline after a close final. Sabeera shot 39 to edge Addya by a single shot (38). Bhavya Tripathi finished sixth as the trio also picked up the team gold with 324.

In the junior men’s trap finals, Aryavansh Tyagi narrowly missed gold after falling short in a shoot-off against Kazakhstan’s Nikita Moisseyev, with both tied at 40 at the end of the final. Ghassan Baaklini of Lebanon won bronze. Aryavansh had earlier won the team gold along with Arjun, who finished fourth in the final, and Udhav Singh Rathore, who shot 106 in qualification.