Asian Shooting Championship: Abhinav Shaw Won Gold, CM Mamata Banerjee is Proud of Asansol's Son

Kolkata (The Uttam Hindu): Abhinav Shaw brought laurels to India by winning gold on the fourth day of the 16th Asian Shooting Championship Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun being held in Shymkent, Kazakhstan. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has congratulated this shooter from Asansol. Mamata Banerjee tweeted on Thursday, "Abhinav Shaw of Asansol brought laurels to Bengal by winning the gold medal in the junior air rifle category at the 16th Asian Shooting Championship held in Kazakhstan. I extend my heartiest congratulations, best wishes and love to Abhinav. I also congratulate his parents, family and friends. I wish him a bright future."

On Thursday, teenage Indian shooters won four of India's five gold medals in individual and team events. This increased India's medal tally to 26. It includes 14 gold, six silver and six bronze medals. With this, India has strengthened its position at the top. All three shooters of the men's 10 meter air rifle senior event performed brilliantly in the qualification round and gave India another team gold medal, but Rudraksh Patil and Arjun Babuta could not convert this opportunity into an individual medal and finished fourth and fifth respectively in the final.

Patil remained in the medal race till the final but was eliminated after the 20th shot in the 24-shot final with a score of 207.6. Teammate Babuta was eliminated two shots earlier with a score of 185.8, while local contenders Islam Satpayev of Kazakhstan won gold, Lu Dingke of China won silver and Park Heejun of Korea won bronze.

Abhinav Shaw, along with Narayan Pranav (third with 631.1) and Himanshu (fourth with 630.9), scored 628.1 in the qualification. In this way, he not only confirmed his place in the final, but also ensured that the score of 1890.1 of the trio created an Asian and world junior record along with the gold medal for India. After this, Shaw played a thrilling final. Shaw was in fifth place after the first series of five shots, but after the second series, he reached the top directly.

The final stage was a close contest with Korean Lee Hyunseo. Shaw lost the lead after hitting two high 9s on the 17th and 18th shots, but eventually edged the Korean by 0.1 points. In the last six shots, he did not score below 10.4. The 21st shot, 10.9, proved to be the icing on the cake of the entire contest.