Narwal bags silver, LA Paralympics quota; Shrishti adds bronze as shooters take tally to four

NAGOYA: Manish Narwal clinched silver and secured a 2028 Los Angeles Paralympics quota place for India, while debutant Shrishti Arora secured a bronze as Indian shooters collected two medals in the men's and women's 10m air pistol SH1 events of the Asian Para Games here on Tuesday.

The Indian shooting contingent took its tally to four medals after two days of competition, with one gold, two silver and a bronze.

Narwal, a 2024 Paris Paralympics silver-medallist and an Arjuna awardee from Ballabhgarh in Haryana's Faridabad district, shot 233.7 in the final to finish second behind South Korea's Jo Jeongdu.

Jo set an Asian Para Games record with a score of 241.3. China's Yang Chao took bronze with 213.6.

The 25-year-old Narwal had won a bronze at the 2023 Asian Para Games in Hangzhou.

The other Indian in the final, Rudransh Khandelwal, finished seventh with a score of 127.3.

Narwal, who won gold in the mixed P4 50m pistol SH1 event at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, had qualified for the final in fifth place with a score of 570, while Khandelwal finished second in qualification with 571.

Narwal made a promising start to the final, but Jo proved too strong for the field, opening up a 4.3-point lead after the first five shots and maintaining his advantage to take gold.

Narwal's brother Shiva is also an accomplished shooter, having won the Asian championships besides being a part of the gold-winning 10m air pistol team at the Hangzhou Asian Games.

Born with nerve damage that affected movement in his right hand and shoulder, Narwal shoots left-handed in the SH1 category. He initially wanted to become a professional footballer, but when his impairment limited his progress beyond local club football, his father introduced him to shooting.

On Tuesday, he became the third Indian para shooter to secure an LA 2028 quota place, following Mona Agarwal and Avani Lekhara, who won gold and silver respectively in the women's 10m air rifle SH1 event.

Shrishti, meanwhile, added another bronze to India's shooting tally with a third-place finish in the women’s 10m air pistol SH1 event.

The 30-year-old shot 214.7 in the eight-shooter final to finish behind Iran's Faezeh Ahmadi (237.3) and Sareh Javanmardi (237.0), who claimed gold and silver respectively after a close contest for the top spot.

The other Indian in the final, Sumedha Pathak, was the first to be eliminated, finishing with 111.4.

The SH1 category is for para shooters with lower or upper-limb impairments who can hold their firearm without assistance and do not need a shooting stand to support its weight.