KUWAIT: China continued its dominance of the medals table of the 13th Asian Shooting Championship, and extended the gap in first place - winning 6 gold medals in the Rifle and Pistol events. The winning of world record holder, Chinese Haoran Yang in the 10M Rifle Event proves that he is targeting World Championship. Yang defeated his compatriot Yifei Cao and Iran’s Pourya Noroziyan. The teams event was won by China, followed by South Korea and Iran respectively.

Korea’s Geongook Lee won the 10 Meter youth gold medal while silver went to Iran’s Alireza Davoodabadi and Sanghun Chu from Korea grabbed the bronze. Another team’s event was won by South Korea followed by Iran and India respectively. In the 10 Meter Junior Men Event, China’s Xuechao Qian won the gold medal, followed by the Indians Akhil Sheoran who won silver and Prashant Prashant who won bronze.

China won the teams gold followed by India - and then Korea. Kazakhstan’s Zhanel Serikbayeva won the 50 M Rifle Prone event after fierce competition with Thailand’s Sununta Majchacheep and Malaysia’s Muslifa Zulkifli. In the teams event Kazakhstan won the gold medal, while Thailand won silver and China took the bronze. Iran’s Fatimah Karamzadeh won the junior 50 meter Prone Rifle followed by Indian Gaithri and Iran’s Nejmeh Khadamati. Iran won the team’s event while India got silver - and Mongolia took bronze.

Meanwhile, the Secretary General of Kuwait and Arab Shooting Federation Obaid Al-Osaimi said the competitions were very exciting. “All the shooters targeted the first place, but it was obvious the Chinese and Koreans were dominant. In the second day, five shooters may qualify for Brazil 2016 Olympics - reflecting the strong competition,” he said. Al-Osaimi asked countries who won quota place for Brazil to go after their rights and coordinate with the organizing committee in order to restore the stolen right and cancel the unfair and illegal decision by the ISSF.

By Abdellatif Sharaa