India has now won five medals in shooting so far – one gold, one silver and three bronze medals.
Shooting, an old faithful for India in multi-sports events, was the discipline that provided the country its first gold medal at the Asian Games in Hangzhou on Monday.
Competing in the men’s 10m air rifle team event, the trio of Divyansh Singh Panwar, Rudrankksh Patil and Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar combined to shoot a new world record score of 1893.7 to claim the gold medal.
“We were focused on our own individual events and we did not plan for the world record,” Patil said later in an interview with Sony Sports Network.
The total team score bettered the one set by China, 1893.3, at the World Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan, last month.
Second on Monday was the team from South Korea, scoring 1890.1, followed by China in the bronze-medal place with 1888.2.
In the tally, Patil scored 632.5 to finish third in the individual event qualification round. Tomar scored 631.6 to finish in fifth spot and Panwar scored 629.6 to finish in eight. All three would have made it to the final of the individual event – which is for the top eight finishers in the qualification round. However, only two athletes per country can compete in a shooting final, therefore Panwar was forced to exit the contest.
