Asian Games 2023: India's 10m air pistol team wins gold medal

Hangzhou: The Indian combo of shooters Sarabjot Singh, Arjun Singh Cheema and Shiva Narwal brought the fourth gold for their country at the Asian Games 2023 here on Thursday.

They won the gold medal in the men’s 10m air pistol team shooting event, taking India's medal tally in shooting at the Asian Games 2023 to 13 medals.

This is the best-ever performance in shooting at the mega event with the previous best was three golds out of 14 medals at Doha 2006.

In this Asiad, India have won four gold, four silver and five bronze medals. Still, there are three more days of shooting events left in Hangzhou.

Sarabjot Singh top-scored for India in the qualifying rounds with 580 (18x). Arjun Singh Cheema was eighth with 578 (19x) while Shiva Narwal managed 576 (13x) for 14th place among 56 shooters. Only the top eight progressed to the final in the individual event.

However, the combined score of 1734 by the three Indians helped them beat China (1733) and Vietnam (1730) for the top step on the podium despite being out of contention for bronze at the halfway stage.

In the individual final, Sarabjot Singh scored 199 for fourth place and was eliminated just outside the medal position. Arjun Singh Cheema was the first to crash out with 113.3 points for eighth place.

Medals in the 10m air pistol individual final went to Vietnam’s Quang Huy Pham (240.5), the Republic of Korea’s Wonho Lee (239.4) and Uzbekistan’s Vladimir Svechnikov (219.9).

India’s mixed skeet team of Anant Jeet Singh Naruka, who won an individual silver on Wednesday, and Ganemat Sekhon finished seventh in the qualifying round with 138 points and did not make the cut to the medal rounds.

Shooting events at the Asian Games 2023 will be held till October 1. A total of 33 gold medals are up for grabs in rifle, pistol and shotgun categories. (UNI)