Asian Games: Jitu Rai wins gold, Shweta Chaudhry bronze on opening day

Rai completes grand double by adding the Asian Games medal to his Commonwealth Games gold

Ace Indian shooter Jitu Rai clinched a historic gold in the 50m pistol event and pistol shooter Shweta Chaudhry bagged a bronze on the opening day of the 17th Asian Games at the Ongnyeon International Shooting Range, here today. 

 

Fresh from his 50m pistol silver in the World Championships, Rai completed a grand double as he had won a gold in the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow earlier this year. The shooter, who serves the Gurkha regiment, was on target from the word go after moving into the finals even as compatriot Omkar Singh failed to cross the qualification hurdle. 

 

In the finals though, Rai was tested by Vietnam's Nguyen Hoang Phuong, who had to settle for silver. 

 

Rai accumulated 186.2 points in comparison to Phuong's 183.4 and Wang Zhiwei of China stood a distant third with 165.6 points. 

 

In the 10m air pistol event, Chaudhry had a total tally of 176.4 at the Ongnyeon shooting range. 

 

China's Zhang Mengyan won the gold with 202.2 while host country South Korea's Jung Jee-Hae secured the silver with 201.3. 

 

"I am happy I got the first medal for India, it's a bronze but a medal is a medal. This is the biggest medal for me till now. I was thinking of first or second place in the beginning when it was good but in the middle I lost a bit. That 8.4 was a bad shot (leading to shoot-off)," the Faridabad shooter told reporters after winning the bronze.

The Indian women's tennis team advanced to the quarterfinals by beating Oman 3-0 in the first round.

The Indian men's badminton team, however, lost to South Korea 0-3 in the pre-quarterfinals at the Gyeyang Gymnasium.