Shourya Saini wins silver in 50m Rifle 3 Positions in Deaflympics, India’s 13th medal in shooting

Shourya Saini. 

Khel Today Bureau

Tokyo/New Delhi: India’s Shourya Saini clinched silver in the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Men’s event, making it the 13^th medal for the country in shooting at the ongoing 25^th Summer Deaflympics in Tokyo. Shourya, who is the current world champion, broke his own world deaf qualification record and created a new Deaflympics world record enroute to the finals. Shourya shot 450.6 in the finals but was 9.2 short of what Germany’s Erik Matthias Hess managed to win the gold medal, breaking the Deaf World finals Record and the Deaflympics record. Dmytro Petrenko of Ukraine won the bronze medal.

In the finals, Shourya hit 151.0 in the kneeling series of 15 shots followed by 151.1 in the prone series. He then hit 99.3 in the first 10 shots of the standing series, followed by a 9.6, 9.9, 9.5, 10.3 and 9.9 in the elimination stage to secure the silver medal. The other Indian shooter in the final, Kushagra Singh Rajawat finished in sixth place with a score of 408.8.

Earlier in qualification, Shourya broke both the existing Deaf World Record and the Deaflympics record with a combined score of 584-32x. He shot 196 in kneeling, 194 in prone and 194 in standing while Kushagra scored 190 in kneeling, 196 in prone and 189 in standing to qualify for the finals in sixth place with a combined score of 575-22x.

Mahit Sandhu and Natasha Joshi will return for the Women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions event tomorrow and Mahit will look to add on to her three medals which she has already won here in Tokyo.

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