India bags fifth gold in shooting at Asian Games, women's team strikes silver

Hangzhou: Medals continued to rain for India in the shooting arena here with the country clinching a gold in men's 50m rifle three-positions team event with a world record, while the Esha Singh-led women's 10m air pistol trio bagged a silver at the Asian Games on Friday.

The men's 50m rifle 3-positions team, comprising the young trio of Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar (591), Swapnil Kusale (591) and Akhil Sheoran (587), overcame the Chinese challenge with ease with a score of 1769 to take the top podium finish, while the hosts were a clear six points adrift with 1763 points.

South Korea was a distant third with 1748 points.

Aishwary and Swapnil shot superbly to make the individual finals as well and are placed first and second after the qualification round.

Akhil, despite finishing fifth with 587 in qualification, will miss out on the eight-team finals as only two shooters per country are allowed in the individual medal round.

India has so far amassed 15 medals at the shooting range, of which five are gold.

Teenager Esha led the front as she guided the Indian women's 10m air pistol team to a silver medal.

The trio of 18-year-old Esha (579), Palak (577) and Divya TS (575) aggregated 1731 points for their silver medal, while China took the gold with a total of 1736, which is an Asian Games record.

Chinese Taipei finished with a bronze, totalling 1723.

Esha and Palak will also have a chance to win individual medals as they both made it to the eight-shooter final, placed fifth and seventh after the qualification round. Divya missed the cut, finishing 10th.

The scores in the qualification round decide the team medallists, while eight top-scoring shooters move into the finals to win individual glory.

Esha had also claimed a silver medal in the women's individual 25m pistol event on Wednesday, while the trio of Manu Bhaker, Esha and Rhythm Sangwan had fired in tandem to shoot the gold medal in the women's 25m pistol team event on the same day.