Palak, Esha gold-silver in 10m air pistol makes it a historic day for India at Asian Games

Hangzhou, September 29

Two teenaged dreamy-eyed shooters, Palak Gulia and Esha Singh, set ablaze the shooting range by powering to a gold-silver finish in 10m air pistol event for India at the Asian Games here on Friday.

In one of the most trailblazing efforts seen by Indian shooters, the duo challenged each other for the top podium finish until 17-year-old Palak clinched the gold medal and Esha the silver to swell the country’s tally in the sport to 17 — six of them gold.

Pakistan’s Talat Kishmala settled for a bronze after giving a tough fight to Esha.

This is the first major individual medal for Palak in an international competition after she came on the shooting scene just last year. She shot 242.1 in the finals for an Asian Games record.

Esha, who had won the individual silver in 25m pistol on Wednesday and was part of the triumvirate that won the 10m air pistol team silver along with Palak and Divya TS earlier on Friday, settled for silver, scoring 239.7.

The unprecedented success of Indian marksmen continued in the 50m rifle arena as well with the men’s 3-positions team, comprising the young trio of Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar (591), Swapnil Kusale (591) and Akhil Sheoran (587), overcoming the Chinese challenge with a world record score of 1,769 to take the top podium finish.