India kick off Asian Games shooting campaign with silver in women’s 10m air rifle

India kick off Asian Games shooting campaign with silver in women’s 10m air rifle India began its shooting campaign at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Sunday with a silver medal in the women’s 10m air rifle team event, with Elavenil Valarivan, Sonam Maskar and Vidarsa Vinod combining for second place.The Indian trio amassed 1,898.0 points to win the silver, finishing behind China who won the gold with a world record 1,904.2 points. Hosts Japan secured the bronze after scoring 1,897.1.The result marked India’s first confirmed medal at the 20th Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya. MMA fighter Suchika Tariyal earlier became the first Indian athlete to secure a medal after advancing to the semi-finals of the women’s 60kg traditional MMA competition, where both the losing semi-finalists won bronze.Sonam became India’s top scorer in the team event by scoring 634.1 points. Elavenil contributed 633.5 while Vidarsa finished with 630.4 as the Indian team cleared the mark of 1898 points.India had another reason to celebrate as Elavenil and Sonam also secured places in the singles final. Their scores were enough to place both shooters among the eight finalists in the individual 10m air rifle competition.The two Indian women will now have another opportunity to add to the country’s medal tally when they compete in the eight-man individual final later on Sunday. Elavenil and Sonam, who have already stood on the podium in the team event, will look to put up another strong showing in the individual event.The silver also gives the Indian shooting contingent an encouraging start to the Games, especially after the shooters there enjoyed a very successful campaign at the Hangzhou Asian Games.The Indian shooting team returned from Hangzhou with a record haul of 22 medals, including seven gold, nine silver and six bronze. The Aichi-Nagoya campaign has now begun with another silver and Indian shooters are gearing up for more medal opportunities in the coming days.