Sarabjot Singh and Surbhi Rao lost 4-16 to China’s Jinyao Liu and Xue Li in the final and settled for silver in the 10m air pistol mixed team event at the Asian Shooting Championships, Changwon, Korea on Wednesday.
This was India’s second medal in the senior category at the ongoing Asian Shooting Championships. Sarabjot Singh won the individual bronze medal on Tuesday in the 10m air pistol and also secured India’s first Paris Olympics quota in the pistol events.
In the qualifying round, the Indian pair ended third with Sarabjot Singh (293-10x) and Surbhi Rao (288-10x) shooting a combined total of 581-20x while Jinyao Liu and Xue Li finished on top with 581-22x. China’s Ranxin Jiang and Bowen Zhang came second after scoring 581-21x.
Usually, the top two teams from the qualifying round make the cut for the gold medal match but since only one team per country could qualify for medal matches, Ranxin Jiang and Bowen Zhang bowed out.
Korea beat Pakistan 17-13 in the first bronze medal match while Vietnam defeated Iran 16-14 for the second bronze medal.
However,in the Men’s and women’s skeet finals the Indians blank .
Anantjeet Singh Naruka, who won the silver medal at the Asian Games missed out on a medal and an Olympic quota after finishing fourth in the final on Wednesday.
The Indian was eliminated after scoring 33 of 40 shots in the six-man final. Qatar’s Rashid Saleh Al-Athba went on to win the gold medal after scoring 53/60 and was followed by South Korea’s Minshu Kim, who shot 51/60. Chinese Taipei’s Meng Yuan Lee won bronze with a score of 42/50.
Gurjoat Khangura also made it to the men’s skeet final but was first to crash out after missing five of the first 20 shots. He was third in the qualifying round after shooting 121 from five rounds.
Anantjeet Singh Naruka finished seventh in the qualifying round with a score of 119 but made it to the six-man final as South Korea’s Jongjun Lee, who finished fourth, competed for ranking points only (RPO). Angad Vir Singh Bajwa was ninth with 118 while Vikram Karn Singh competed under RPO to score 107 and finish 40th.
Ganemat Sekhon was the best-placed Indian in the women’s skeet at 15th, scoring 108. She was followed by Kartiki Singh and Parinaaz Dhaliwal on the 17th and 18th, respectively. Darshna Rathore was 19th after shooting 106 in the field consisting of 28 shooters.
The Asian Shooting Championships is a qualifying event for the Paris 2024 Olympics. A total of 24 Olympic quotas are on offer with the top two finishers (one per country) in each of the 12 Olympic shooting events securing a spot for their national teams.