Asian Shooting Championships 2024: Akhil Sheoran wins gold medal in men’s 50m 3P

India’s Akhil Sheoran and Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar helped India to a 1-2 finish in the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions event at the Asian Shooting Championships 2024 in Jakarta, Indonesia on Friday.

While Akhil Sheoran won the gold medal with a score of 460.2 in the final, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar bagged the silver with 459.0. Thai shooter Thongphaphum Vongsukdee took the bronze medal with 448.8.

Paris 2024 Olympic quotas were on offer for the top two finishers in the event (maximum one per country) at the Jakarta meet. India, however, had already secured their full allocation of two quotas in the men’s 50m rifle 3P event for next year’s Summer Games earlier.

Swapnil Kusale secured the first men’s 50m rifle 3P quota for India at the 2022 World Championships in Cairo while Sheoran obtained the second at the 2023 worlds in Baku.

In the qualifying round, three Indians qualified for the finals of the men’s 50m rifle 3P event at the Jakarta meet, an Asian Olympic qualifier for rifle and pistol shooters.

Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar finished third in the qualifiers with 588 while Sheoran (586) and Swapnil Kusale (584) were sixth and ninth, respectively. Kusale shot in the final and finished sixth.

India’s Neeraj Kumar and Chain Singh also finished in the top five in the qualifiers, but both shooters were competing for ranking points only (RPO).

Meanwhile, in the men’s 50m rifle 3P team event, India won the gold medal with Akhil Sheoran, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar and Swapnil Kusale tallying a total of 1758. The People’s Republic of China, with 1744, bagged silver while the Republic of Korea claimed the bronze medal with 1735.