World Univ Games: Golden boy Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar at it again

Chengdu (China), July 31

Olympian Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar led the show with a hat-trick of gold as shooters and archers powered India’s best-ever medal haul with 17 podium finishes in the World University Games here today.

On Day 4 of the meet, the Indian athletes claimed four gold medals — two in shooting and two in archery, one silver in shooting and one bronze archery.

Overall, India won nine gold, three silver and five bronze to sit fourth in the medal standings behind China (17 gold, 5 silver, 4 bronze), South Korea (10 gold, 10 silver, 4 bronze) and Japan (10 gold, 6 silver, 7 bronze).

India’s previous best was in Gwangju, South Korea, in 2015 when they ended up with five medals.

Aishwary claimed a hat-trick of gold medals as the shooters took their overall tally to nine medals.

In the 10m air rifle men’s team event, Aishwary won along with Divyansh Singh Panwar and Arjun Babuta, defeating hosts China with a world record score. The trio shot 1,894.7 points for the title, 7.3 points better than the previous world record set by China in 2018. In the individual event, Aishwary won gold with a 252.6, pipping teammate Divyansh Singh Panwar’s 251.0.

Compound archers Sangampreet Singh Bisla and Avneet Kaur emerged champions as archers ended their campaign with their highest-ever tally of three gold, one silver and three bronze medals.