Shot and Sweet: Two make India proud in Tokyo rifle contest

Rifle shooter Mahit Sandhu won silver in the 50m Prone event — her third medal in the ongoing 25th Summer Deaflympics in Tokyo.

Mahit also broke the World Deaf Record in qualification en route to the finals. She shot 246.1 in the finals to secure the silver medal while Eliska Svobodova of Czechia won the gold, with a score of 247.2.

Hungary’s Mira Zsuzsanna Biatovszki won bronze with a score of 225.0.

The other Indian shooter in the finals, Natasha Joshi, finished in eighth position, going out after a shoot-off.
In the finals, Mahit was in fourth position after the completion of 14 shots.

She moved into a bronze medal after the next series of two shots, overcoming Violeta Lykova of Ukraine and remained in the same position until the completion of 20 shots.

Mahit then hit a 9.8 and 10.2 in the next series, but a 9.4 and 9.8 from the Hungarian shooter ensured the Indian moved up into silver position.

Mahit then finished the finals with scores of 10.0 and 10.7, but could not match up to Svobodova’s total score as the Czech shooter also hit both her final shots in the 10s.

Earlier in qualification, Mahit created a new Deaf World Record finishing the six series with a score of 619.7 while Natasha Joshi booked her place in the finals in seventh place with a score of 611.6.

India has taken its medal tally to 12 in shooting at Tokyo with Mahit contributing three of them. She had earlier won gold in the 10m mixed team event and a silver medal in the 10m individual event.