Asian Games 2018: Shooters Purvi Chandela-Ravi Kumar opens India’s medal account

Purvi Chandela and Ravi Kumar opened India’s medal account at the 18^th Asian Games with a bronze in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team event on Sunday. The duo finished third with an aggregate of 429.9 points in the 48-shot final behind China’s 492.5 (second) and Chinese Taipei who won the gold with an Asian record of 494.1 points.

“Our best finish together was fourth at the World Cup and we have improved on that. My first Asian Games medal and my first medal for India here. I am really happy about that but my focus is on main event (10m rifle) tomorrow,” Chandela told PTI after the event conclusion.

At the end of the 42^nd shot, India was second and looked assured of a silver, but repeated mishits allowed China to overtake them and talking of letting the opportunity slip away, Chandela said, “This happens in shooting. I think we shot alright.”

Earlier, India had qualified for the for the final after finishing second with 835.3 points behind South Korea’s 836.7 – an Asian Games qualifying record.

Meanwhile, the pair of Manu Bhaker and Abhishek Sharma failed to qualify for the finals of the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team event after managing just 759 points to finish sixth in the qualification round.  They were tied on 759 points with Kazakhstan, but it was the latter who sealed the fifth and final qualifying round with more inners 10s than India – Kazakhstan had 25 to India’s 14.

“Manu did not shoot to her potential. She was angry and agitated towards the end. She needs to work on controlling her anger. Abhishek needs to learn how to cope up with pressure in big events. It is new for him. They both will learn,” said Pistol coach Jaspal Rana.

In Men’s Trapshooting category, Manavjit Singh Sandhu led the leaderboards with 72 points on the first day, while Lakshay was on fifth with 71 points.

Shreyasi Singh remained on second with 71 points in the women’s qualifying round, while Seema Tomar stood fourth.