India’s Manish Narwal and Singhraj won gold and silver respectively as they finished 1-2 in the P4 – Mixed 50m Pistol SH1 at the Tokyo Paralympic Games at the Asaka Shooting Range here on Saturday.
Narwal shot a Paralympic record 218 in the final while Singhraj, who had won a bronze medal in the 10m Air Pistol SH1 earlier this week, finished second with a score of 216.7. Sergey Malyshev of the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC) took the bronze with a score of 196.8.
The 19-year-old Narwal had qualified seventh while Singhraj was fourth going into the final but both the Indians shot brilliantly, holding their nerves to surge to the top of the list. Narwal is the world record holder in the final, set at Al Ain, UAE, in March this year.
Singhraj, 39, shot into the lead after the first elimination round but Malayshev soon came back to open up a two-point lead as Uzbekistan’s Server Ibragimov, who topped the qualifying, Iran’s Sareh Javanmardi, and China’s Lou Xiaolong all got eliminated one after another with the Indians maintaining their position in the top five.
Narwal and Singhraj overtook the Chinese duo of Xiaolong and Yang Chao in the fourth series of shots as the Chinese shooters faltered with 7.5 and 8.7 respectively. Malayshev crashed out with a 6.9 on his 21st turn as Narwal shot a 10 and Singhraj 9.2 to jump to the top two positions.
In the next two shots, Narwal managed 8.4 and 9.1 while Singhraj made 8.5 and 9.4 respectively but that was not enough for him to overtake Narwal and Singhraj had to be satisfied with the silver, his second medal at Tokyo 202.
Earlier, Singhraj shot superbly to surge into the final with a score of 536 and finish fourth while Narwal had a topsy-turvy round as he went up and down the table a few times before finishing seventh with a score of 533 as eight shooters made it to the final. Uzbekistan’s Server Ibragimov, China’s Lou Xiaolong, and Iran’s female shooter Sareh Javanmardi finished with an identical score of 539 but the took the top position as he had shot nine pellets into the inner-10 circle (9x) as compared to eight by the Chinese and five by the Iranian shooter.
Russian Paralympic Committee’s (RPC) Sergey Malyshev, who had shot a world record score of 555 in Lima, Peru in June this year, could manage only 532 on Saturday as he booked the eighth and last spot in the final. Serbia’s Zivko Papaz and China’s Yang Chao are the other two shooters in the final.
Narwal, who holds the World Record for the final, scored 79 in his fourth series of 10 shots and also had an 88 on his sixth turn. These two low scores pulled him down and he had to be satisfied with the seventh position. Narwal shot a 91 in the first round of 10 shots and followed that up with 93 and another 91 before disaster struck in the fourth series. He responded with a 91 before ending his qualification round with an 88.
Singhraj was more consistent as he shot 90 or more in four rounds. He started with 93, 90, and 91 in the first three rounds followed by two 86s before winding off with a 90.