Maiden Asian gold for Rudrankksh Patil

NEW DELHI: For Rudrankksh Patil, it was closure of sorts. Just one medal, a bronze, in three previous attempts at the Asian rifle and pistol championship had made the shooter from Maharashtra a little desperate for a better finish before the home crowd.He fulfilled his dream in style on Friday by claiming gold in the men’s 10m air rifle at the Karni Singh shooting ranges.

Arjun Babuta made it a double delight for the hosts by taking the silver.“It feels like closure. My only goals left are Asian Games and Olympic gold. For the ones that I have already achieved, I would look to at least double them in future,” said Patil, who won the world championship, his first international medal as a senior, as an 18-yearold in 2022.“I’m obviously very happy. I was thinking for the past few days that most of the time I have come fourth in Asian Championships. So I wanted to break that,” he said.In 2024, the 22-year-old won his last individual medal in Jakarta.He had won three gold in previous editions, but all in team events.He has also not won any individual medals in Asian Games so far, but has gold from the 2025 Buenos Aires World Cup.On Friday, Patil spent some anxious moments in his quest for gold.

After topping the qualification round, he started the eight-shooter final poorly and slumped to the last position after the initial five-shot series. He moved up slightly in the next series before jumping to the top soon after.Patil said the ability to remain calm even in tough situations helped him tide over the initial setback.“The situation almost went out of my hand, thankfully I was able to fetch something out of it.

Bouncing back is one of my strong points. But I know I have to work on winning matches more smoothly and easily.” His final score of 251.9 was over a point more than that of Babuta (250.7). The duo then joined Vishal Singh (who finished fifth) to claim team gold. Silver went to Kazakhstan and bronze to Japan. Naoya Okada of Japan got the individual bronze with 229.3.