Elavenil Valarivan wins gold with new Asian record at Shooting Championships

A bout of fever and body ache couldn't stop Elavenil Valarivan from winning gold, with a record, at the 16th Asian Shooting Championships in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, on Friday. Ela, 26, shot 253.6 in the final to clinch the top spot and create a new Asian Record in the final, breaking her former teammate Apurvi Chandela’s mark of 252.9 set in 2019. This was Ela’s second gold at the Asian Championships after the 2019 edition in Taoyuan, China. The Tokyo and Paris Games participant had a humble outing in the qualification round as she was seventh in the list of eight-woman final. She shot 630.7, only ahead of her compatriot Mehuli Ghosh, who scored 630.3 to qualify eighth. The silver went to China’s 16-year-old shooter Xinlu Peng (253) and the bronze was taken by Korea’s Eunji Kwon (231.2). Despite her poor health, Elavenil had expected to perform better. “I could have done better in the qualification,” she told TOI. “I have shot better than 630.7 in most of the tournaments I have participated in. I was struggling with fever till yesterday (Thursday) but today was comparatively better and manageable. Though the qualification was not satisfactory, I think I did better in the final. There was good competition,” she said. In the final, Ela’s lowest score was a 10.0, while her highest was a 10.9. She shot 10.8 five times in the 24 shots. The final was interesting, as Mehuli was ahead of Ela after the first five shots, but a 9.8 by the former in the sixth shot pulled her down in the ranking. Mehuli tried to come back with a couple of 10.4s and 10.5s in the next few shots but Peng and Kwon shot around 10.8s to stay steady in the top-3 bracket. Mehuli eventually finished fourth with a score of 208.9. Another Indian, Ananya Naidu, was 11th with a score of 630 in the qualification. In the junior women’s 10m air rifle event, Shambhavi Kshirsagar, Hrudya Kondur and Isha Taksale failed to win medals despite doing well in the qualification round. Shambhavi was second to qualify for the final with 633.7. Hrudya was third with 632.1, while Isha scored 630.4 to make the cut in fifth place. However, in the final, the Indian trio looked under pressure and stayed out of the medal bracket right from the first series of five shots. Shambhavi, in the fifth spot, was the top Indian with the final score of 186.3. Isha was sixth with 165.2 and Hrudya seventh with 143.2.