Indian shooters record best-ever medals haul

Hangzhou: The young Indian shooting brigade sizzled at the Asian Games, steam-rolling the rivals to win two gold and three silver on Friday and record their best-ever medal haul in the continental showpiece.

The grand success of the shooters over the last six days has seen them amass 18 medals so far, including six gold and seven silver, surpassing the 14 they had won during the 2006 Doha Asian Games in an era dominated by the likes of the legendary Jaspal Rana.

Palak Gulia and Esha Singh made it a one-two in individual 10m air pistol, while the trio of Esha, Palak and Divya won the country a team silver in the event, before the triumvirate of Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Swapnil Kusale and Akhil Sheoran added another team gold in 50m rifle 3 positions. The baby-faced 22-year-old Aishwary added another individual silver in rifle 3 positions, fighting an early elimination before finishing second best to a Chinese marksman, who set an Asian Games record.

Two teenage 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. In one of the most trailblazing efforts seen by the Indians, the young duo challenged each other for the top podium finish until 17-year-old Palak clinched the gold medal and Esha the silver.

"There's no rivalry with anybody. My biggest competitor has always been me. I'm always fighting with myself," Palak said later. Palak had a score of 9.1 in her first shot in the finals but recovered remarkably well.

"My first shot was 9.1, a totally outer shot. I was a bit nervous after that, thinking obviously like what I hit. But I then said it's not over, it's the first shot, you have 23 more shots to go.

"So, it's not over until you win. It's all right, it's just one shot and because of this you cannot let you impact the rest of the shots," said the 17-year-old from Jhajjar district in Haryana.

Esha said she would give her performance nine out of 10 points. "It was good, the initial start was very nice. I was able to maintain my focus for as long as possible. There were certain times where it was not working out, but I'm glad that at the end, it did.

"I had a bit of nerves, and I couldn't trigger well. I instantly realised, and I'm grateful that I did. So then I paid more attention towards my triggering. Technically, I have noted down a few things for my next competition to improve."