Mahit Sandhu clinches gold in 50m Rifle 3 Positions, her fourth medal at Deaflympics

TOKYO(Japan): India’s Mahit Sandhu clinched the gold medal in the 50m Rifle 3 Positions women’s event, making it four medals in her debut Summer Deaflympics here in Tokyo on Saturday.

In a tightly contested final, Mahit shot a combined score of 456.0 after 45 shots to win her second gold medal in the games. South Korea’s Dain Jeong won silver with a final score of 453.5, while Mira Zsuzsanna Biatovszki of Hungary won bronze with a score of 438.6. Mahit also broke the Deaf Qualification World Record and the Deaflympics World Record enroute to the finals, as per a press release from the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI).

Mahit shot 585-31x in qualification with scores of 194 in kneeling, 198 in prone and 193 in standing, breaking her own world record of 576 w,hich was set last year in the World Deaf Shooting Championships in Hannover. The other Indian in the competition, Natasha Joshi, qualified for the finals in seventh place with a score of 566-12x. She finished fifth in the finals with a score of 417.1.

In the final’s Mahit was on top of the pile after the completion of the kneeling, prone and ten shots of the standing series. In the 41st shot, Mahit hit a 9.4, and Dain Jeong’s 10.1 gave the Korean the lead, but Mahit came back strongly and hit all her remaining four shots in the 10s to secure the gold medal.

The Indian shooters have won 14 medals at the Deaflympics till now, including five gold, six silver and three bronze medals. Abhinav Deshwal and Chetan Hanmant Sapkal will be in action tomorrow in the 25m Pistol event. (ANI)