Indian junior trap shooters Vivaan Kapoor (right) and Bhowneesh Mendiratta celebrate after clinching gold and silver medals. Picture: Ebrahim Kutty
Doha: Indian shooters Vivaan Kapoor and Esha Singh came up with dominant performances in winning the junior men’s trap and junior women’s air pistol gold medals in the Asian Shooting Championship yesterday.
On a day when Chinki Yadav kept herself in the race for the Olympic quota in women’s 25-metre sports pistol event with a half-way score of 292, two points behind the leader, it was the juniors who swelled the collection for India with 10 medals, including five gold.
Vivaan was top class as he won the gold by beating compatriot Bhowneesh Mendiratta 45-42 after having topped qualification with 120 out of 125. Along with Manavaditya Rathore, the Indian trio won the team gold with a score of 347, eight points better than China. Esha Singh, a prodigy in air pistol who had swept the women’s, junior and youth gold medals in the last National championship in Kerala as a 13-year-old, beat Jeong Hyo of Korea by 4.9 points for the gold.
Along with Priya Raghav (bronze) and Yuvika Tomar, Esha also clinched the team gold for India.Bhakti Bhaskar Khamkar won the junior women’s rifle 3-position gold, but the team had to be content with the silver.
India has won 23 medals so far, with the juniors accounting for 18, apart from the Olympic quota in men’s air rifle through Deepak Kumar.
