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Teen sensation Chaudhary creates history in shooting

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Teen sensation Chaudhary creates history in shooting

India's Saurabh Chaudhary poses after winning the 10m air pistol gold medal. (AP)

Jakarta - Saurabh Chaudhary won the men's 10-metre air pistol gold medal at the Asian Games on Tuesday

Published: Tue 21 Aug 2018, 9:19 PM

Updated: Tue 21 Aug 2018, 11:22 PM

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  • AP/IANS

A 16-year-old student has become a real hot shot in the Indian team. 
Saurabh Chaudhary won the men's 10-metre air pistol gold medal at the Asian Games on Tuesday in his debut in senior competition, beating a field containing ex-world and Olympic champions. 
Chaudhary, who only took up the sport competitively three years ago and set a junior world record earlier this year, won with a games record of 240.7 in the 24-shot final. Japan collected silver via 42-year-old ex-world champion Tomoyuki Matsuda, who was a point behind. 
Abhishek Verma joined India teammate Chaudhary on the podium after finishing in third place. 
"There were Olympian shooters, world champions and so on - to beat them means a lot to me," he said, recalling how he recalibrated for the last two rounds when he realised he was closer than most had expected.
"When I was in second position, I thought I will only win a silver ... but at the last the momentum changed and I won the gold." 
Meanwhile, India's Divya Kakran shrugged off a crushing quarterfinal defeat to bag a bronze in 68kg women's wrestling, ensuring that medals continued to come from the wrestling arena.
Kakran was demolished by the experienced Mongolian Tumentsetseg Sharkhuu in the 68kg category but the Delhi athlete was lucky as she did not even have to come through a repechage to be in contention for bronze.
The draw was such that she was pitted against Chinese Taipei's Chen Wenling without playing a repechage round and won the bout in just one minute 29 seconds by technical superiority.
Meanwhile, star gymnast Dipa Karmakar failed to qualify for the vault final but made the cut in the balance beam as India also booked a berth in the title round of the team competition.
Dipa, who had narrowly missed a bronze in the vault final in the 2016 Rio Olympics, finished eighth in her pet event's qualification round with a score of 13.225.
She could not qualify in the vault final as her two compatriots Pranati Nayak (13.425) and Aruna Budda Reddy (13.350) finished above her at sixth and seventh respectively.
 



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