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Indian shooters reign supreme with clean sweep at South Asian Games
Indian shooters ruled the tournament for the fourth successive day as they made a clean sweep of all the six gold medals on offer in the 12th South Asian Games in Guwahati on Saturday.
Indian shooters ruled the tournament for the fourth successive day as they made a clean sweep of all the six gold medals on offer in the 12th South Asian Games in Guwahati on Saturday.
Omkar Singh (men’s 10m air pistol), Rahi Sarnobat (women’s 25m pistol) and Anjum Moudgil (women’s 50m rifle 3 positions) grabbed a gold each while India also bagged the top spot in all the three team events to simply outshine their rivals at the Kahilipara Shooting Range.
The home country’s domination was such that in the three individual events of the day, India swept all the three medals in two while winning a gold and a bronze in the remaining one.
Pakistan’s Kaleemullah (men’s 10m air pistol) was the lone non-Indian to get a medal today. He won a silver.
With today’s show, the star-studded Indian team, which have six Rio Olympics bound shooters, has so far collected 18 gold, 8 silver and 8 bronze in four days. Two days are left in the competition.
The day also saw Olympics bound Gurpreet Singh coming up with a disappointing performance in men’s 10m air pistol as he finished sixth in the event won by compatriot Omkar who shot a total of 198.8 to clinch the gold. Another Indian, Jitendra Vibhute, bagged the bronze.
Omkar, Gurpreet and Jitendra then took the team gold in men’s 10m air pistol event with a total score of 1735. Pakistan (1700) and Sri Lanka (1663) took the silver and bronze respectively.
In the women’s 25m pistol final, Sarnobat won the gold medal match against compatriot Annuraj Singh with eight points to two while Anisa Sayyed took the bronze by prevailing over Farhat Nasreen of Pakistan.
India took the team event gold with Sarnobat, Anisa and Annuraj scoring a total of 1741. Sri Lanka (1654) and Pakistan (1631) got the silver and bronze respectively.
There was a tough fight for the gold in the women’s 50m rifle 3 positions between Moudgil and Elizabeth Susan Koshy. Moudgil was the better of the two in the kneeling position but Koshy made up the deficit with a strong show in the prone.
But, Moudgil took control in the standing position and had taken such a huge lead, that even a very poor shot of 8.0 in the gold medal deciding round could not stop her from grabbing the top spot with a total of 452.2.
Koshy was second with a total of 451.9 while another Indian Lajja Gauswami took the bronze.
Moudgil, Koshy and Gauswami then shot down the gold in the team event with a total score of 1726. Sri Lanka (1686) and Pakistan (1656) won the silver and bronze respectively.
