New Delhi, February 15, 2016: Rio bound Heena Sidhu and Gurpreet Singh struck Gold at the XII South Asian Games today, even as India continued their total domination in shooting at the Kahilpara Shooting Range on the outskirts of Guwahati. Heena won the Women’s 10M Air Pistol Team Gold along with Shweta Singh and Yashaswini Singh Deswal but had to settle for Silver in the individual event where compatriot Sweta Singh claimed top honours. Gurpreet however managed a Golden Double when he won the individual as well as the Team Gold in the Men’s 25M Rapid Fire Pistol event to swell India’s Gold tally from the sport to 25 out of the 26 Gold medals dished out. The extent of domination also reflected in the fact that India has claimed a total of 45 of the 77 medals so far distributed in the sport, at the Games.

Heena who topped qualifying in her pet 10M Air Pistol with a score of 386 was in the running for Gold till the last shot of the eight woman finals, however better consistency by Sweta on the day saw her come out as the eventual winner. Sweta who came through qualifying in third position with a score of 373, shot 194.4 in the finals to Heena’s 192.5. The Bronze in the event went to Yashaswini Singh Deswal who shot 171.3 to ensure a clean sweep of medals in the event by the host country. The trio also put up a combined score of 1133 to claim the Team Gold in the event ahead of Bangladesh (1103) and Sri Lanka (1093).

In the Men’s 25M Rapid Fire Pistol, Olympic Silver medalist Vijay Kumar set the pace when he qualified for the finals in top position returning a score of 572. Gurpreet qualified a point behind in second position with Pakistan’s Ghulam Mustafa Bashir also shooting well for a 567 to qualify in third place. In the finals however, Gurpreet shot a total of 28 to claim Gold while Bashir of Pakistan won the Silver finishing with a score of 24. Vijay Kumar had to settle for the Bronze medal with a score of 20. Gurpreet and Vijay also teamed up with AkshaySuhasAshtaputre to win the Team Gold in the event with a combined score of 1702, some way ahead of the Silver winning Pakistan team who had a total of 1677. Sri Lanka managed 1525 to win the Team Bronze.

India’s tally from shooting at the Games now stands at 25 Gold, 10 Silver and 10 Bronze medals.