Asian Airgun Championship | Saurabh Chaudhary and Manu Bhaker win gold and silver respectively in10m rifle

Asian Airgun Championship | Saurabh Chaudhary and Manu Bhaker win gold and silver respectively in10m rifle

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Saurabh Chaudhary bagged a gold medal and Manu Bhaker silver, in their respective 10m Rifle/Pistol Youth event to book quota places for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games. India ended their 10th Asian Airgun Championship campaign with an impressive 21 medals- 6 gold, 8 silver and 7 bronze over four days.

While Chaudhary won both an individual gold as well as the Team gold in the men's 10m Air Pistol Youth event, Bhaker could manage an individual silver in the women's 10m Air Pistol Youth. India also claimed another silver in junior women's 10m Air Pistol.

The fourth and final day in Japan began with the junior women's 10m Air Pistol event, which saw junior world champion Yashaswini Singh Deswal and Mahima Agrawal reaching to the field of eight finalists, finishing third and fourth in qualifications, respectively. Both Yashaswini and Mahima shot a score of 378, while Yogita could only score 372 to finish in 11th place.

Their impressive combined score of 1128 eventually helped India claim a Team silver as they finished behind Iran with 1144 and ahead of Korea, who logged a total of 1122. In the final round, Yashaswini shot 195.7 to finish fourth while Mahima ended sixth on a score of 155.4. China’s Yan Chen won gold in the event, creating a World and Asian Record score of 240.1 as she defeated Veronika Major and Yashaswini's score of 235.9.

In the men's 10m Air Pistol Youth event, India saw two youngsters reaching the finals as Arjun Singh Cheema topped qualifying with a score of 577, while Chaudhary shot 573 to qualify in third place. Surinder Singh was the third Indian in the field, who could shoot only 561 to finish 10th.

The trio combined to win the Team gold with a score of 1711, as they stood 11 points clear of the silver winning Korean team and 19 ahead of China, who won bronze. It was then followed by Chaudhary’s brilliant start to finish effort in the final to finish with a score of 243.1 to win gold and seal the first of the three available quotas for the YOG in the process. He was followed by Iran's Erfan Salavati, who won silver with 236.2 and Okcheo Shin of Korea, who bagged a bronze with 217.6.

In the women's 10m Air Pistol Youth, Bhaker topped the list qualifying with a score of 382 and was the only Indian to reach the final. While Priya Raghav scored 368 to finish 16, Anushka Patil finished 22 with a score of 365.

After a terrible start in the final, where she was seen standing eighth after 10 shots, young Bhaker came back wth a vengeance to win a silver, eventually falling short by a narrow margin of 0.1 to China's Jiaruixuan Xiao. Bhaker ended with a score of 236.0 as Xiao finished at 236.1.

Overall, India added four medals to their kitty on the final day to finish the campaign with a total haul of 21 medals over four days, including six golds, eight silvers and seven bronze medal, besides four YOG quotas.

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