Rudrankksh & Mehuli join hands to shoot down gold

Jakarta, January 9

The pair of Rudrankksh Patil and Mehuli Ghosh won the 10m air rifle mixed team event to maintain the Indian shooting contingent’s dominance in the Asian Olympics qualifiers here today.

Rudrankksh and Mehuli triumphed 16-10 over China’s Shen Yufan and Zhu Mingshuai in the final.

In the 10m air pistol mixed team event, however, India settled for silver with the duo of Arjun Cheema and Rhythm Sangwan losing 11-17 to finish behind Vietnam’s Thu Vinh Trinh and Quang Huy Pham.

Rhythm and Arjun topped the qualification round with a total score of 582, finishing ahead of the second-placed Vietnamese duo (580), but they could not get the better of their opponents when it mattered the most.

Earlier in the day, the pair of Rudrankksh and Mehuli was second in the qualification, shooting a total score of 631.3 to finish behind Yufan and Mingshuai, who aggregated 632.3.

The second Indian pair of Elavenil Valarivan and Arjun Babuta finished sixth overall with a score of 629.0.

India also won the junior event in the mixed team air rifle when Isha Taksale and Umamahesh Maddineni defeated the Chinese pairing of Chu Ziqing and Pan Bowen 17-11 in the gold medal match.