Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar won silver after a sensational comeback in the men's 50m 3 Positions rifle final of the Hangzhou Asian Games on Friday. Compatriot Swapnil Kusale was leading for a large part of the final before fading to finish 4th.
Earlier, the two of them along with Akhil Sheoran had won gold in the team event. This means Tomar has won four medals at these Games, earlier he'd won gold in the 10m air rifle team event and bronze in the individual event. This makes him India's most successful athlete at Hangzhou.
Tomar qualified second, behind Kusale in the morning. They both hit 591, but were separated by the number of inner tens hit (10.6 and above); Kusale had 33 and Tomar 27.
In the final, both shooters started slowly with hits of 9.9 for Tomar and 9.8 for Kusale. But after five shots, Kusale had recovered to climb to third with Tomar struggling at 8th in the 8-man field.
The next ten shots saw Kusale climb higher, finishing the kneeling position at 2nd with 152.8, with Tomar 6th with 151.6.
In the middle of the prone position, Kusale rose to first and that's where he stayed till shot 41. Behind him, Tomar started a steady climb from sixth, and by shot 35 he was tied third.
Then began the elimination rounds and as others dropped out, Kusale and Tomar held steady at 1st and 3rd till that pivotal shot 41. Here Tomar hit 10.6 but Kusale dropped down drastically to go from first to fifth. In the meantime, Tomar's clutch shooting had moved him up to second.
Kusale survived the first elimination with a 10.5 on his 42nd shot, but could do nothing after a 10.1 saw him still straggle behind eventual bronze winner Tian Jiaming.
In the final round Du Linshu's lead was too much for Tomar, whose 9.7 wasn't going to trouble the Chinese shooter. Du's gold also came with a new Games record. In fact, even Tomar's 459.7 beat the previous record by 4.2 points.