Jakarta :
India have opened their account at the 18th Asian Games in Indonesia. Apurvi Chandela and Ravi Kumar have won bronze in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team event on Sunday. The Indian pairing finished third with a total of 429.9 points. The Chinese Taipei duo of Yingshin Lin and Shaochuan Lu won the gold at the event with 494.1 points creating an Asian Games record.
The Chinese Ruozhu Zhao and Haoran Yang took home the silver with 492.5. Korea and Mongolia finished fourth and fifth respectively in the event held for the first time at the Games.
“Our best finish together was fourth at the World Cup and we have improved on that. My first Asian Games medal and my first medal for India here. I am really happy about that but my focus is on main event (10m rifle) tomorrow,” Chandela told PTI.
India had started strongly with 102.9 points after the first 10 shots. In the next ten shots the duo were second with 205.5 points. After Stage 1 (30 shots), the Indian shooters maintained second position with 308.5 points.The duo slipped from second spot to third in the elimination stage. Chandela said that such things happen while shooting.
Kumar said, “This bronze has come only because of Apurvi. The final was a disappointment after a decent qualification. We didnt get enough time to train together.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi have congratulated the winners.
Our talented shooters give us our first medals at the @asiangames2018.
Well done @apurvichandela and Ravi Kumar for bagging the Bronze medal in the 10m Air rifle mixed team event. #AsianGames2018 pic.twitter.com/p6pQLhgR1b
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 19, 2018