Silver for Chaudhary at the Asian Shooting Championship

India’s young shooting prodigy Saurabh Chaudhary continued his fine form by bagging a silver medal in the men’s 10m Air Pistol category at the 14th Asian Championship in Doha.

The nation’s other pistol shooter, Abhishek Verma finished in fifth place with a score of 181.5 in the final.

Qualification round

Chaudhary managed a score of 97 in the first qualification round and followed that up with a perfect score in the second to stand himself in good stead to make it to the final.

The 17-year-old managed to score 98 in the third round to continue his good show before tapering off slightly in the subsequent rounds, notching up 96 points in each of the final three rounds.

That mild decline though did not hamper his chances for the final, as he finished seventh after qualification, with a cumulative score of 583.

Verma was also solid in qualification, as he started his day with a score of 98 in the first round and maintained his consistency throughout, registering scores of 96, 98, 95 and 97 in the following rounds to keep himself in contention for a place in the final. With a strong score of 99 in the sixth qualification round, the 30-year-old maintained his charge at the Asian Championship with a total score of 583.

India’s third pistol shooter, Kumar Sharvan could not make it past the qualification round, managing only a 28th place finish with a cumulative score of 574.

Close final

While Verma had to be satisfied with a fifth-place finish after he was eliminated from the competition with a score of 181.5, Chaudhary’s steely focus and precision were on show in the final as well.

The Asian Games gold medallist though kept India’s charge going as he challenged North Korea’s Kim Song Guk until the very end.

Ultimately, the North Korean triumphed, with a score of 246.5 that left Chaudhary to settle for silver with a tally of 244.5 in the final while Iran’s Foroughi Javad bagged bronze with a score of 221.8.