Asian C’ship: Bhanwala wins bronze in 25m rapid fire pistol

Anish Bhanwala bagged a bronze medal in the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol event at the ongoing Asian Championship in New Delhi on Wednesday.
According to Sportstar, the 23-year-old Anish finished third with 23 hits. Kazakhstan’s Nikita Chiryukin won silver with a score of 28 while Japan’s Yoshioka Dai clinched the gold with a World Record of 31 hits.
Before the penultimate series, the three medallists were tied at 21. Chiryukin put the pressure on his opponents with four hits out of five. Dai responded in style as he produced a perfect series to take sole lead. Anish, the 2018 Commonwealth Games gold medallist, was knocked out after he could only manage two hits.
In the final series, qualification topper Chiryukin hit the target thrice, leaving Dai with the task of merely matching the Kazakh’s effort to seal the top spot. However, the 40-year-old Japanese came up with his second perfect series in a row to stamp his authority.
Adarsh Singh (11), the other Indian amongst the eight finalists, took sixth position.
In the qualification round, Bhavesh Shekhawat (577), who finished third, was the top Indian shooter but he was competing only for ranking points (RPO) and hence, didn’t feature in the finals. Anish (574) and Adarsh (573) were seventh and eighth, respectively. Rajkanwar Singh Sandhu (567), another Indian eyeing RPO, was 10th while Neeraj Kumar (561) was 16th in an 18-shooter event.
In the junior men’s final, Suraj Sharma (23) bagged a silver medal while Mukesh Nelavalli (19) took the bronze medal. Indonesia’s Muhamad Fawwaz Aditia Farrel clinched gold with a Junior World Record score of 29.