Asian Games: India women win trap silver, men finish 6th; Neeru, Shapath have reached the finals

Indian women shooters bagged a silver medal in the trap team event while the men finished sixth at the Asian Games in Japan on Tuesday. The trio of Neeru Dhanda, Aashima Ahlawat and Manisha Keer finished with a combined score of 328 to finish second behind gold medalist China with 346 points. Bronze was won by Kuwait with 325 points.

Neeru led the Indian challenge with a score of 118 out of a possible 125. In the individual qualification, she finished alongside Ray Bassil of Qatar, setting a games qualification record.

Neeru has also qualified for the eight-shooter singles final to be held later on Tuesday. Aashima scored 106 while Manisha contributed 104. Both finished 16th and 23rd in the individual qualifiers.

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The Chinese team that won the gold included Liu Shanshan, Sun Yunong and Zhu Jingyu. The Kuwaiti trio that won the bronze medal were Alhawal Shahad, Abdulmalik Hajar and Alhawal Sarah.

India finished three points ahead of Kuwait to secure the silver medal.

SHAPATH GIVES THE ULTIMATE MAN TRAP

The Indian men’s trap team finished sixth among 10 teams, Shapath Bharadwaj, Kynan Chenai and Ahvar Rizvi combined to score 339 points. Kuwait won the gold medal with 355 points, while Qatar won the silver with 349 and Kazakhstan secured the bronze with 348.

Shapath, however, secured a place in the individual finals after finishing eighth in the qualifiers. The 24-year-old native of Meerut had to go through a shootout for the last two places in qualifying. He pushed out Mohammed Al-Rumaihi to take the eighth and final spot.

Shapath will now compete in the singles final on Tuesday. India’s sixth-place finish in the team event was a setback after the country won gold in the men’s trap team event at the previous Asian Games in China.

Kynan Chenai, Zoravar Singh Sandhu and Prithviraj Tondaiman had jointly won the gold medal for India at the previous edition. India will have two shooters in the individual traps final on Tuesday, with Neeru advancing to the women’s final and Shapath qualifying for the men’s final.

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