Sift Kaur Samra wins India’s sixth senior gold in Olympic events

Khel Today Bureau

New Delhi: Olympian Sift Kaur Samra, won her first Asian crown, winning the women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions (3P) gold at the 16^th Asian Shooting Championship in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, on Tuesday (Aug 26, 2025). Sift’s class, experience and expertise, especially in the Standing position, came through in the women’s 3P final, as she shot 459.2 to leave young Chinese hope Yang Yujie 0.4 short, after ending the first Kneeling position in seventh place.

India’s juniors also picked up six golds, 2 silvers and one bronze including four team golds on what was effectively day nine of competitions with the women’s 3P, men’s 25m rapid-fire pistol and the trap men and women shooters doing the honours. Anushka Thokur in 50m 3P Women and Sabeera Haris in Trap Women won the individual gold while Aryavansh Tyagi won silver in Men’s Trap and Sameer Gulia won bronze in Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol.

With two more Olympic event finals left to be played with the men’s 25m rapid-fire pistol and Trap mixed team competitions lined up over the next two days, India and China are now in a race for supremacy with each having bagged six golds each.

Earlier Sift had combined with Ashi Chouksey (586) and Anjum Moudgil (578) for the team gold in women’s 3P as well, with a tally of 1753, which was three clear of the Chinese team.

Sift topped the qualifications with a score of 589, while Ashi also made the finals in fourth place.

Besides the two Indians, the finals featured Mongolian Yesugen Oyunbat, who led the eight-woman fielded after the first Standing Position, a second Chinese in Zhang Liyuan, Asian Championship giant Lee Eunseo of Korea and Japan’s Misaki Nobata, besides the host nation’s seasoned campaigner Yelizaveta Bezrukova.

Sift found her range at the end of the second Prone position and climbed up to fourth while Ashi could not to go down to seventh from sixth.

The Beunos Aires World Cup winner this year, Sift first went into the lead after the fourth shot of the third and final Standing position, firing a 10.7. She followed it up with a 10.8 to stamp her authority in the position. The Chinese were tied in second at the stage with Oyunbat slipping to fourth.

The 37^th was a 10.9 by Yang taking Sift down to second for one shot. Ashi meanwhile could not get going and bowed out in seventh after the 40^th shot along with the Kazakh in eighth.

The 43^rd was in the 9s from Sift and Yang took advantage yet again but Sift repeated the one-shot trick as Misaki dramatically rose up to bronze at Zhang’s expense.

The Indian ace’s final shot was a 10.0, her 11^th shot in the 10s in Standing out of 15, while Yang managed eight.

In the junior women’s 3P, Anushka Thokur won the gold with a score of 460.7, five points more than Sehee Oh of Korea who won the silver. The other Indian’s in the final, Mahit Sandhu and Prachi Gaikwad finished fifth and sixth with scores of 414.7 and 413.9 respectively. Earlier Prachi topped qualifications with 588, Mahit Sandhu was second with 587 and Anushka Thokur was fourth with 583, as the trio took the team gold with a tally of 1758.

In the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Junior event, Sameer Gulia secured the bronze medal with a score of 21 in the finals, after qualifying with a score of 576. Korea’s Geonwoo Son won the gold while Kazakhstan’s Kirill Tsukanov won the silver. Suraj Sharma and Abhinav Choudhary, the other Indian’s hit 12 and four to finish fifth and sixth respectively. The trio combined to win the team gold for India with a combined score of 1724, with Suraj finishing qualification on top with 577 and Abhinav on fourth with 571.

Lonato World Cup mixed team bronze medalist Sabeera Haris and 15-year old Addya Katyal ensured a 1-2 finish for India in the Trap Women Junior discipline after a close fight in the finals with Sabeera who shot 39 edge Addya by a single shot who finished on 38. Bhavya Tripathi finished in sixth in the finals as the trio also picked up the team gold with a score of 324.

In the junior men’s trap finals Aryavansh Tyagi narrowly missed out on a gold medal after missing to hit the bird in the shoot off against Kazakhstan’s Nikita Moisseyev, with both shooters tied at 40 each at the end of the finals. Ghassan Baaklini of Lebanon won the bronze. Aryavansh had earlier won the team gold along with Arjun, who finished fourth in the finals and Udhav Singh Rathore who shot 106 in the qualification round.

Other scores of the day

25m Rapid Fire Pistol Men (After Stage 1)

Anish Bhanwala – 290 – 10x

Adarsh Singh – 290 – 9x

Neeraj Kumar – 282 – 7x.