By Prarthana Mitra
India’s winning streak in shooting events continued as the 12th Asian Games entered the third day. Rahi Sarnobat became the first Indian woman to clinch Asiad gold in shooting, after prevailing in a tense 25m air pistol final event on Tuesday. The Wushu contingent also furthered India’s medal tally, adding four bronze medals. The men’s hockey team continues to dominate but have managed to outdo even themselves, during Wednesday’s match against Hong Kong.
Olympics, World Cup, Asian Games: check
The 27-year old from Kohlapur settled a tie with Thailands Naphaswan Yangpaiboon in a nail-biting shoot-off after both of them scored 34 points in the first 10 rounds. In the shoot-off too, they held their tie for four rounds, after which Rahi scored three, while her rival acceded defeat with two. With this historic victory, she joins 16-year-old Saurabh Chaudhary who won the other shooting gold in the men’s 10m pistol on Monday.
Rahi was also Indias first pistol shooter to win a gold in the World Cup back in 2013 but she had suffered a serious elbow injury last year. According to The Hindu, she decided to seek help with her technique from two-time world champion and German Olympic-medallist Munkhbayar Dorjsuren.
Her 16-year-old compatriot Manu Bhacker, however, showed a lot of promise in the beginning only to end up in the sixth place. In the womens Rifle 3 Positions event, Anjum Moudgil and Gayathri Nithyanandam failed to qualify for the final.
All four Wushu players from the Indian contingent lost in the semifinals but made sure to give their best performance at the Games. Naorem Roshibini Devi, Santosh Kumar, Surya Bhanu Partap Singh and Narender Grewal ended their campaign in Indonesia with four unprecedented bronze medals. In the 2014 Asian Games, India had won two bronze, with Grewal clinching one in mens Sanda 60kg. Wednesday’s feat makes this is the second Asiad bronze for Grewal.
Roshibini Devi was the first to take the field in womens Sanda 60kg semifinals before she lost to Cai Yingying of China 0-1. Santosh Kumar in mens Sanda 56kg category was no match for Vietnam’s Truong Giang Bui, losing the bout 0-2.
Defending hockey champions, India’s men in blue cruised to their biggest ever tournament win with a clean 26-0 against Hong Kong. The match witnessed another record being broken, as the team surpassed their 24-1 victory over the United States at the 1932 Olympics. Scoring an average of one goal every two minutes, the hockey players took their goal tally to 43 so far in this tournament.
Prarthana Mitra is a staff writer at Qrius