Mona Agarwal Wins Gold, Avani Lekhara Silver in Women’s 10m Air Rifle at Asian Para Games

India’s Mona Agarwal won gold and Avani Lekhara silver in the women’s 10m air rifle standing SH1 final at the Asian Para Games in Aichi-Nagoya on Monday. The double podium gave India its first medals of the competition.

MONA SETS A NEW GAMES RECORD

Mona scored 250 after the seventh series, a new Asian Para Games record. It beat the previous mark of 249.6, which Avani had set at the 2023 Hangzhou Games. Avani finished with 249.6 after the same series to take silver.

The final followed a dominant qualification round. Mona topped it with 629.1 after Series 6, a new qualification record for the Games that surpassed the mark held by China’s Zhang Cuiping. She fell just 0.3 of a point short of the world record of 629.4, held jointly by Avani and Slovakia’s Veronika Vadovicova. Avani was second in qualification with 626.4.

MEN’S FINAL ENDS WITHOUT A MEDAL

In the men’s 10m air rifle standing SH1 event, Rakesh Nidagundi and Swaroop Unhalkar had qualified for the final in seventh and eighth place, with scores of 619.3 and 617.4. Neither reached the podium.

Mahavir Swaroop Unhalkar finished fourth with 205.9 and was eliminated after the fifth series. Debutant Nidagundi finished seventh with 141.5. Anandha Krishnan missed out on the final, finishing 13th in qualification with 605.2.

SHEETAL DEVI’S WORLD-RECORD SCORE

Earlier on Monday, archer Sheetal Devi equalled the world record in the women’s compound ranking round, scoring 704 out of 720 at the Okazaki Chuo Sogo Park Multipurpose Square. Turkey’s Oznur Cure holds it jointly.

Sheetal also beat her own Asian record of 698, set in Bangkok in March, by six points, and set a new Games record, surpassing her 680 from Hangzhou in 2023. She and Payal Nag, who scored 675, topped the para compound women’s doubles ranking round with a combined 1,379.

In the men’s compound ranking round, Harvinder Singh was fifth with 631 and Vijay Sundi seventh with 630.

With inputs from ANI