Saurabh Chaudhary Adds to India’s Shooting Medals

August 21, 2018 Dwayne Fernandes Sports Scoops 2

What a day this was for young Indian shooter, Saurabh Chaudhary, and for the whole country as well. When I say young, I mean really, really YOUNG. He’s 16 years old. Most of us are busy playing cricket or football in our streets at that age, while young Chaudhary has gone on to make his country proud with an Asian Games gold medal.

Today was the third official day of play at the 2018 Asian Games, where India opened its tally on the first day itself. At the end of Day 3, India had a total of 10 medals, of which 6 have come from shooting; the first bronze came from Apurvi Chandela and Ravi Kumar, while yesterday, Deepak Kumar and Lakshay Sheoran added two silvers to India’s tally.

Now, Chaudhary took Team India’s shooting achievements to the next level, by headlining the day with India’s third gold medal of the competition and first shooting gold medal. The 16-year old was making his Asian Games debut and went on to top the 10m Air Pistol final final, with a Games record score of 240.7, after topping the qualifying round.

He snatched the lead from 2010 World Champion Tomoyuki Matsuda, while showing a lot of calmness and maturity, something that you can’t generally associate with a teenager. Chaudhary hails from Kalina village in Meerut, and he was accompanied in this event by 29-year old Abhishek Verma, who scored 219.3 to secure bronze. Two out of three of the podium were thus Indians, bringing India ts 6th and 7th medal of the tournament.

Interestingly, Chaudhary is the son of a farmer from Meerut and it goes to show how he has come up the hard way, a story which will be similar to many of those in India’s 524-athlete contingent that travelled to the 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia. “I like farming. We don’t get much time off from training but whenever I do, I go back to my village and help my father,” said Chaudhary.