THE redoubtable Mirabai Chanu added another historic chapter to her storied career with a jinxbreaking silver but India’s campaign looked far from assured in shooting despite a couple of skeet bronze medals on a day of mixed fortunes in the Asian Games in Nagoya, Japan on Wednesday. Mirabai, who had been in pursuit of an Asiad medal since 2014, finally got one as she totalled 198kg (88kg+111kg) to finish second in the women’s 49kg category. The silver was also India’s first Asian Games weightlifting medal since Karnam Malleswari’s medal of same colour in 1998. Overall, it rained bronze medals for India on the day with the men’s badminton team, soft tennis player Jay Meena along with the men’s and women’s skeet shooting teams ending up with thirdplace finishes. Meena, who has gone medalless in the past two editions of the Games, was third-time lucky as he became the first Indian to win an Asiad medal in the sport that is played with softer rubber balls and significantly lighter racquets compared to traditional lawn tennis. But as is the case when she is competing anywhere, the 32- year-old Mirabai, who won an Olympic silver in Tokyo in 2021, commanded the spotlight. With a familiar grin on her face, she made light work of the heavy weightlifting before declaring that her “life is now complete.”

 

However, there was no such feeling of contentment at the shooting range where the skeet exponents saved the day for India after the more-hyped women pistol shooters -- double Olympic-medallist Manu Bhaker, Suruchi Singh and Esha Singh -- failed to medal in either the team or individual 10m air pistol events. Bhaker was the only one to even qualify for the individual finals only to finish fifth overall. The 24-year-old Paris Olympics bronze-winner later broke down as she opened about the emotional toll that the shocking death of her childhood coach Jaspal Rana in June has taken on her. The men’s and women’s team event bronze medals in skeet ensured that it was not a complete wash-out at the shooting range. The women’s team featured Raiza Dhillon, Maheshwari Chauhan and Parinaaz Dhaliwal and they combined for a score of 331 to finish third behind gold medallists China (357) and Kazakhstan (336). Raiza and Parinaaz also qualified for individual finals but could not fetch podium finishes. In the men’s competition, Anantjeet Singh Naruka (119), veteran Mairaj Ahmad Khan (116) and Bhavtegh Singh Gill (111) snared the men’s team bronze with a total score of 346. Of these, Anantjeet made the individual finals to end up fourth overall.