JAKARTA: China’s champion duo Ji Xiaojing and Wu Jiayu won the gold medal in the 10m mixed air pistol at the Asiad today, while India’s teenage shooting sensation made a disappointing early exit.
Ji, 30, and Wu, 21, saw off Korea in the final, adding the Asian Games title to their cabinet after setting a new world record of 487.7 in April at the World Cup in Changwon, Korea.
The pair – world number four and six respectively – scored 473.2 on Sunday, short of their best but enough to edge Koreans Kim Minjung and Lee Daemyung into second place with Vietnam bagging bronze.
India’s gold hopefuls Manu Bhaker, 16, and Abhisek Verma, 28, ended up bowing out in sixth place, missing out on a place in the finals.
China’s victory will help offset their earlier result in the 10m mixed air rifle event, in which the country narrowly lost to rivals Taiwan to take silver against teenager Lin Yingshin and her teammate Lu Shaochuan.
World number nine Lu Shaochuan told reporters afterward that the win came as a total surprise following an under-par display in the qualifying round.
“It’s unbelievable,” he said. “I wanted to give up but I cheered up again once I reached the final…I’m very happy.”
Both finals were packed out on the first day of the tournament in the co-host city of Palembang, with competitors having to block out the blaring pop music and cheers and cries from excited onlookers.
China is the dominant force at the Asian Games after topping the medal table in every edition of the Regional Olympics since 1982.
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Taiwanese teenager Lin Yingshin and teammate Lu Shaochuan scored a narrow victory over bitter rivals China at the shooting range of the Asian Games on Sunday.
The finals venue for the 10m air rifle mixed team event in Palembang, which is co-hosting the Games with Jakarta, was standing room only as 19-year-old Lin and 21-year-old Lu brought the victory home.
The pair, ranked second and ninth in the world respectively, managed to keep their calm to beat their Chinese counterparts, world number three 20-year-old Zhao Ruozhu and 22-year-old Yang Haoran.
Lu told reporters afterward that the win came as a total surprise following an under-par display in the qualifying round.
“It’s unbelievable,” he said. “I wanted to give up but I cheered up again once I reached the final…I’m very happy.”
India came away with bronze as the last to be eliminated in a tense battle requiring high levels of concentration to block out the blaring pop music and cheers and cries from the onlookers.
China is the dominant force at the Asian Games after topping the medal table in every edition of the Regional Olympics since 1982.
A relevant piece published earlier:
(North and South Korea marched together behind the Korean Unification flag at the Asian Games opening ceremony on Saturday, in the latest demonstration of their rapprochement. South Korean women’s basketball player Lim Yung-hui and North Korean footballer Ju Kyong-Chol carried the blue and white flag as the Korean athletes paraded into Jakarta’s Gelora Bung Karno stadium. It is the second such symbolic gesture this year by the two Koreas, who also walked together at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics opening ceremony – an event that heralded an unprecedented warming of ties. The North and South, still technically at war, are also joining forces in women’s basketball, canoeing, and rowing during the 40-sport, two-week regional Olympics. The athletes marched together to the song “Arirang”, considered the most well-known folk song on the Korean Peninsula, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said. It the 11th time the Koreas have marched together at a global multi-sport competition, Yonhap added, and the first such occasion at an Asian Games since the 2007 Winter Asiad in Changchun, China. (Published on 19th of August, 2018).
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