Asian Para Games: Manish Narwal wins silver in 10m Air Pistol SH 1, secure LA 2028 quota

Nogoya, Oct 20 (IANS) Two-time Paralympic medallist para shooter Manish Narwal won the silver medal in the 10m Air Pistol SH 1 category at the Asian Para Games and also secured a quota for the 2028 LA Paralympics here on Tuesday.

Narwal shot 233.7 to clinch the second spot on the podium, behind Jeongdu Jo OF South Korea, who bagged the gold with a Games record of 241.3. Another Indian Rudransh Khandelwal scored 127.3 to finish seventh in the eight-man final.

Khandelwal (571-21x) and Narwal (570-15x) finished second and fifth, respectively, in the qualification round to make it to the final. Meanwhile, Nihal Singh finished 12th in the qualification with 560-9x.

Narwal had won the silver medal in the men’s 10m air pistol shooting SH1 class at the Paris 2024 Paralympics. In Tokyo 2020, he became the first male Indian shooter to win a gold medal at the Paralympics when he claimed the mixed SH1 50m pistol title.

The SH1 sport class in pistol events is designated for athletes with upper and/or lower limb impairment.

Meanwhile, Sumedha Pathak (561-18x, 1st) and Shrishti Arora (560-8x, 5th) made it to the Women’s 10m AP SH1 Final. Sumesha topped the qualification with 561-18x, while Shrishti was fifth with 560-8x.

Paris Paralympics Games 2024 bronze medallist Rubina Francis failed to make it the final, finishing 10th in the qualification with 558-16x.

On Monday, Mona Agarwal won India’s first gold of the Games in the women’s 10m air rifle standing SH1, setting a new Asian Para Games record with a score of 250.0. Two-time Paralympic champion Avani Lekhara finished second with 249.6 to complete India’s first one-two finish at Aichi-Nagoya.

India arrived in Aichi-Nagoya after their best-ever Asian Para Games campaign at Hangzhou 2023, where they won a record 111 medals – 29 gold, 31 silver and 51 bronze – to finish fifth.

–IANS

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