The Chinese appeared to have a cakewalk in the early stages of the final, but the Indians made a strong comeback, going from 7-15 to 11-15 before the Chinese won the 15th series to claim gold.
Earlier in the qualification round, Qian and Liu had finished first out of nine teams with a score of 586, while Varun and Rhythm had finished second with a score of 581.
We all try our hardest and put our best foot forward, and silver is also a medal. Gold would have been ideal, but we are content with silver and will try harder next time Rhythm, one of the country’s most promising pistol shooters, won four junior team and individual gold medals at the 2021 World Championships in Lima.
The second Indian team, composed of Divya TS and Sarabjot Singh, finished fifth with a score of 574, one point short of bronze. Rudrankksh Patil and R Narmada Nithin, the reigning men’s air rifle world champions, couldn’t replicate their success at the ISSF World Cup in Cairo last month, finishing with a bronze medal.
The pair finished third in qualification with a combined score of 632, qualifying for the bronze-medal match against China’s Zhang Qiongyue and Yu Haonan, who finished fourth with the same combined score in the 19-person field.
Rudrankksh and Narmada defeated the Chinese pair 16-8 in the bronze-medal match, which was much closer than the score suggests. Both teams did not shoot a single shot under the 10-point mark. The highlight was when both Rudrankksh and Narmada shot perfect 10.9s in the sixth series.
Of course, there was pressure, but then we had a really good match u2014 the competition was so good, and we really enjoyed it, Narmada said after the game.
Even if they did not win gold, Rudrankksh stated that there was no lack of motivation. We were simply asked to focus on our process, and while gold would have motivated us, bronze motivates us even more to do better next time, he said.
Hriday Hazarika and Tilottoma Sen, the second Indian pair in the event, shot 628.1 in qualification to finish ninth. Huang Yuting and Sheng Lihao of China won gold, defeating Istvan Peni and Denes Eszter of Hungary 16-2.
