Aichi-Nagoya, 26 September (H.S.): Indian shooters Tilottama Sen and Vidarsha K. Vinod put up strong performances in the women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions individual final at the 2026 Asian Games but narrowly missed out on medals. Tilottama finished fourth, while Vidarsha secured fifth place.

Tilottama came agonisingly close to winning the bronze medal. She was 0.3 points ahead of South Korea’s Kim Ji-yoon in third place before the final shot. However, Tilottama scored 9.4 on her last attempt, while Kim registered 10.5 to claim the bronze medal. Tilottama consequently had to settle for fourth place.

Vidarsha’s challenge ended earlier in the final. She moved ahead of Kazakhstan’s Arina Malinovskaya at one stage after scoring 10.4, but slipped out of medal contention after registering 10.0 with her next shot. Vidarsha finished fifth with a score of 327.4.

Both Indian shooters had produced strong performances in qualification to secure places in the final. Tilottama finished third with a score of 590-32x, while Vidarsha qualified in fifth place with 588-29x.

China’s Han Jiayu and Zhang Liyuan secured the gold and silver medals respectively in the final. Han produced a decisive 10.5 on her final shot to win gold with a score of 359.0 and set a new Asian record. Zhang finished second with 358.8 points.

India, however, had already secured a medal in the event through the team competition. The Indian trio of Tilottama Sen, Vidarsha K. Vinod and Esha Chouksey won the silver medal with a combined score of 1,763-90x. Esha contributed 585-29x, but did not qualify for the individual final.

The silver medal is Vidarsha’s second at these Asian Games. Earlier, she won silver in the women’s 10m Air Rifle team event alongside Elavenil Valarivan and Sonam Uttam Maskar.

Thus, India secured the silver medal in the women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions team event, while Tilottama and Vidarsha narrowly missed out on individual podium finishes.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar