Hangzhou, Sep 26 India's Ramita Thapar and Divyansh Panwar suffered a heartbreak defeat to the Republic of Korea in the bronze medal match in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team event in the Asian Games shooting competitions in Hangzhou on Tuesday.
The pair of Ramita and Divyansh had a handy lead in the bronze medal match but the Korean pair of Hajun Park and Eunseo Lee fought back to pip the Indians to the post, winning the match-off for third place 20-18 at the 10m shooting range at the Fuyang Yinhu Sports Centre.
The Indians lost the match by the narrowest margin 0.2 points and had to be satisfied for the fourth spot after they had fought through the qualifying to finish among the top six and qualify for one of the two bronze medal matches.
The Indian duo had taken an 8-0 lead by winning the first four series of two shots each in the one-on-one duels. But the Koreans fought back and slowly crawled onto them and levelled scores at 15-15. The two teams went neck and neck after that till 18-18 when the Koreans won the two-shot series 21.5 to 21.3 and grabbed two points which sealed their victory.
The 19-year-old Ramita, participating in only her second senior-level event, shot brilliantly, getting all 10+ scores. But two below-par shots by Divyansh -- a 9.9 and 9.8 put paid to their chances as they lost the match-off and missed winning another medal for India in the Asian Games shooting competitions.
Ramita has already won two medals -- a silver in the women's 10m Air Rifle Team competition and a bronze in the 10m Air Rifle Individual event on Sunday while Divyansh Panwar helped the Men's team bag the country's first gold medal in the 10m Air Rifle Team competition on Monday.
The Chinese pair of Yuting Huang and Lihao Sheng defeated Uzbekistan's Mukhtasar Tokhirova and Javokhir Sokhirov in the final to win the gold medal. Kazakhstan won the other bronze medal by beating Iran.
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