Asian Shooting C'ships: Arjun and Elavenil clinch air rifle mixed team gold

The Indian air rifle mixed team pair of Elavenil Valarivan and Arjun Babuta clinched the gold medal at the 16th Asian Shooting Championships in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, on Saturday.

After topping the qualification round with a huge score of 634, the duo defeated China's Lu Dingke and Xinlu Peng in the gold medal match with a score of 17-11, concluding their tournament on a high note.

This was the second gold medal from the championship for both players, where Arjun had won an air rifle men's team event gold medal earlier, and Elavenil was the Individual champion in the women's air rifle event.

For Arjun, this was his second air rifle mixed team gold medal at the Asian Championships after the 2022 edition, where he clinched the title alongside Mehuli Ghosh.

The defending champion pair of Mehuli Ghosh and Rudrankksh Patil missed out on a medal despite finishing second in the qualification round, as there can be only one pair per country in medal matches.

With this, the air rifle events came to an end at these Asian Championships with India winning three out of the five available gold medals, and proving to be the best nation in this discipline.

Overall, this medal took the Indian tally to 11 medals, having four Gold, one Silver, and six Bronze medals.