Shooting: Anuya Prasad, Pranjali Dhumal seal gold & silver in Air Pistol at Deaflympics
New Delhi, Nov 17 (IANS/WISHAVWARTA) Birthday girl Anuya Prasad and teammate Pranjali Prashant Dhumal completed a 1-2 finish for India in the 10m Air Pistol event of shooting competitions at the 25th Summer Deaflympics currently being held in Tokyo, Japan, on Monday.
Anuya Prasad also broke the Deaf final World Record enroute to winning the gold, and Pranjali broke the qualification world record to book her place in the final. Abhinav Deswal, who equalled the qualification world record, won silver in the men’s event, to take India’s shooting medals to seven at the Deaflympics after two days of competition.
Anuya shot 52.5 in the first series of the final and maintained her lead throughout the competition, and eventually secured gold with a final score of 241.1, which was 4.3 points ahead of Pranjali, who finished with a score of 236.8. Mahla Samiee of Iran won the bronze. Earlier in qualification, Pranjali broke her own World and Deaflympic records in qualification, finishing with a score of 572-12x, bettering the previous records of 568 and 561, respectively.
In the men’s event, Abhinav shot 235.2 to win the silver medal. Korea’s Tae Young Kim won the gold with a score of 238.2, while Croatia’s Boris Gramnyak won the bronze medal with a score of 215.3. He also equalled the world and Deaflympics world record in qualification, shooting a score of 576. The other Indian in the fray, Rudar Vinod Kumar, finished qualification in 12th place with a score of 549.
The Air Rifle Mixed Teams will be in action on Tuesday as India will look to add more medals to their tally in shooting at the Deaflympics.
India has sent a 15-member squad, including three coaches, that will represent India across five individual events in the men’s and women’s categories, one event in the men’s category, and two mixed team shooting events at the Ajinomoto National Training Center (East).
The squad is being led by Deaflympic double gold medallist Dhanush Srikanth, who will lead India’s challenge alongside fellow Deaflympic medallists Shourya Saini and Abhinav Deshwal. The contingent also features World Deaf Championship medallists Mahit Sandhu, Anuya Prasad, Pranjali Dhumal, Natasha Joshi, Chetan Sapkal, Kushagra Singh Rajawat, and Mohammed Vania, forming one of India’s most experienced line-ups at the Games.
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