Jakarta: Olympian and former World No 1 Heena Sidhu overcame several hiccups before claiming a bronze medal with a score of 219.3 in the Women’s 10m air pistol final in the shooting competition at the 18th Asian Games in Palembang on Friday.
Heena is the second Indian woman to win a medal in this event in Asian Games after Shweta Chaudhary, who too won a bronze, in 2014 Incheon.
Fancied Commonwealth Games gold-medallist Manu Bhaker, the other Indian in the final, scored 176.2 before getting eliminated to finish fifth.
With four shooters left, Heena trailed Iran’s Golnoush Sebghatollahi, who was third by just 0.1 point when the latter fumbled and scored a 9.2 and a nervy 5.3 to slip to fourth position.
Heena shot a near-perfect 10.8 but a 9.6 in the next attempt dashed her hopes of a better finish at the Jakabaring Shooting Range.
Having made a stunning comeback after languishing at 13th and 17th places in the qualification stage, Heena did not look content with the eventual third-place finish as she managed to reduce the gap to a mere 0.1 between her and the gold medal.
Heena ,with two 10.2s on her 19th and 20th shots, assured herself of at least a bronze. After shooting an almost perfect 10.8 in the next shot, she trailed eventual gold medallist Wang Qian of China by just 0.1 point.
However, a 9.8 in her final shot wasn’t sufficient to close in the gap.
The Indian had earlier qualified for the finals in the seventh position with 571 points while Manu had scored 574 to finish third. Wang scored 240.3 to set a new Games record, while South Korea’s Kim Minjung won silver with 237.6 points.
For two straight events at the ongoing Games, Manu shot brilliantly in the qualifications and cracked in the final. The Haryana girl had topped the 25m pistol qualification with a Games record and was third on Friday going into the final.
