Harpal Singh Bedi / New Delhi
Divyansh Singh Panwar and Elavenil Valarivan stole the limelight as India dominated the 5th day’s proceedings in the 12thAsian Airgun Championships, at Taoyuan, Taipei.
Divyansh and Elavenil won the 10m Air Riflle Men and Women’s individual golds as well as the two Team golds on offer in the event combining effectively with their teammates to ensure the sweep
India has won 12 of the 14 gold medals at stake so far and their overall tally now stands at 18 medals (12 gold, four silver and two bronze).
Divyansh shot 628.2 to top qualification and lead three Indians including Ravi Kumar (626.3) and Deepak Kumar (626.2) into the eight-man final.
In the final as well, Divyansh, the least experienced international among the three, led from the start to snuff out the challenge of Koreans Kim Dajin and Shin Minki. Divyansh shot 249.7 to Kim’s 247.4 for silver and Shin’s 225.5 for bronze.
In the women’s final, Elavenil too led from the front to shoot a quality score of 250.5 to emerge triumphant. Host, Taipei’s Lin Ying-Shin won silver with 250.2 while Park Sunmin of Korea won bronze with a score of 229.1.
Like in the Men’s event, all three Indians including Apurvi Chandela and Meghana Sajjanar had also made it to the finals but finished fourth with 207.8 and seventh with 143.3 respectively.
Indian won the team gold in the Men’s 10m Air Rifle when the combine of Divyansh, Ravi and Deepak posted a total of 1880.7 to leave behind Korea with 1862.3 in second place.
The women’s team of Apurvi and Meghana besides Elavenil also won gold with a combined total of 1878.6. Here the hosts Taipei came in second with 1872.5.