Arjun Babuta and Elavenil Valarivan strike gold in 10m air rifle mixed team at Asian Shooting Championship

Indian shooters Arjun Babuta and Elavenil Valarivan won gold in the 10m air rifle mixed team event at the 16th Asian Shooting Championship in Shymkent, Kazakhstan on Saturday. The duo defeated China's Dingke Lu and Xinlu Peng 17-11 in the final after overcoming early struggles.The Indian pair started cautiously with scores of 9.5 and 10.1 but recovered strongly in the later stages to secure victory against their Chinese opponents.This was Elavenil's second gold medal at the championship, following her win in the women's 10m air rifle individual event on Friday where she scored 253.6 points. She finished ahead of China's Peng Xinlu (253.0) and Korea's Kwon Eunji (231.2) to become continental champion for the first time.Elavenil, who has competed at both Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Olympics, continues to prove her prowess as one of Asia's top shooters.The men's 10m air rifle team of Arjun Babuta, Rudrankksh Patil and Kiran Jadhav also secured team gold earlier in the championship.In the women's team event, Elavenil combined with Mehuli Ghosh and Ananya Naidu to win bronze. Mehuli Ghosh also placed fourth in the individual women's 10m air rifle final.India leads the medal tally with 21 gold, eight silver and ten bronze medals. China follows in second place with nine gold medals and a total of 19 medals.The Indian shooting contingent's strong performance across individual and team events has established their dominance at the championship in Shymkent.