It was a heartbreaker. Elavenil Valarivan finished with 252.4, just 0.6 points behind Japan’s Taichi Hinata, who claimed gold with 253.0. The 27-year-old shooter from Tamil Nadu had been in the hunt for the top spot right until the final shots, but the margin was too slender to overcome. South Korea’s Ban Hyojin rounded out the podium with bronze on 230.4.
This isn’t a one-off stumble; it’s a display of relentless consistency. Valarivan had already etched her name in the history books earlier this week when she teamed up with Sonam Maskar and Vidarsa Vinod to win silver in the team event. Their combined score of 1898 points placed them behind China, securing India’s first medal of the Aichi-Nagoya Games. In that team final, Valarivan was the engine, firing 633.5 points to qualify for the individual round.
The individual final was a heavyweight affair, featuring elite shooters from China, Japan, and South Korea. Valarivan was drawn at firing point E, sharing the lane with her compatriot Sonam Maskar, Hinata, and China’s Han Jiayu. She held her nerve, keeping the gold medal in sight through the majority of the match. However, the precision required to beat Hinata in the closing stages eluded her, resulting in a second silver rather than the elusive gold.
While the individual result ended in silver, the broader picture for Indian shooting remains bright. The contingent continues to dominate, with Suchika Tariyal also making headlines by reaching the semifinals of the women’s traditional 60kg MMA event. Tariyal’s win over Mongolia’s Altanchimeg Baigalmaa secured India’s first-ever Asian Games medal in MMA, a sport making its debut at these Games. As the competition intensifies, the focus shifts to whether India can convert these near-misses into gold in the upcoming individual events.