India's day at the Asian Games was once again given a golden start by the shooters with Sarabjot Singh, Arjun Singh Cheema and Shiva Narwal clinching the team gold in the men's 10m Air Pistol Team event.
After a sensational day on Wednesday when the Indian shooters won 7 medals including two gold, the pistol shooters continued India's brilliant run by winning the fourth gold medal in shooting.
Starting off India's shooting campaign on Thursday, Sarabjot, Arjun and Shiva finished with a combined score of 1734, with an impressive 50 hits in the inner 10 circle.
They were slow to get off the blocks, shooting 284 in the first series but then made a strong comeback in the middle series to shoot 287, 291, 294, 290 and finally finished with a 288.
The Indian trio finished ahead of China (1733-62x) and Vietnam (1730-59x) to win India's sixth gold medal of the Hangzhou Asian Games.
Sarabjot & Arjun In Individual Finals
On the basis of their performance in the team event, which was also the qualification round for the individual finals, Sarabjot and Arjun moved into the medal round.
Sarabjot qualified in the fifth position and Arjun took up the last qualification spot and was the eighth ranked player to make the final.
With mostly 9s in his first two series, Arjun though became the first shooter to be eliminated from the final, in eighth position.
Sarabjot though fought hard but in the series to decide the top 3, he shot an 8.8 to be eliminated in the fourth position. He finished with a score of 219.9.
"I am happy to win the gold in the team competition, but disappointed to miss the medal in the individual. I had my chances but made a couple of mistakes and that cost me a medal," said Sarabjot after the final.
He said the aim for him now is to participate in the Asian championship and hope to grab a quota place for Paris Olympics.
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