Asian Games: Elavenil Valarivan takes 10m air rifle silver after late hiccup

New Delhi: For 21 of the 24 shots, Elavenil Valarivan showed few signs of nervousness while leading the eight-shooter final.

Shooting with exemplary composure and precision, Elavenil consistently hit the inner-10s and looked on course for a wire-to-wire win in the women’s 10m air rifle competition. But such are the vagaries of this sport that individual standings are also a function of how well the other shooters are firing. And firing rather steadily was local girl Taichi Hinata who pipped the Indian to the post with a Games record score of 253.

Elavenil, competing in her second Asian Games after the 2018 edition in Jakarta and Palembang, took silver with 252.4 while reigning Olympic champion Ban Hyojin from South Korea completed the top three with 230.4.

That made it the first Asian Games since 1986 when China has failed to win an individual women’s 10m air-rifle medal — ending a 10-edition, 40-year medal streak.

Coming into the competition, the 21-year-old Japanese, ranked 49th in the world, was yet to win an international medal. Elavenil, 27, is a former world No.1 and current world No.7, a two-time Olympian, a two-time Asian Championships gold medallist, a World Championships medallist, and a multiple World Cup medallist. On paper, the Indian had the upper hand, and to her credit, her shooting justified the pedigree. But sport is seldom, if ever, determined by data alone.

When the moment of reckoning arrived at the Aichi General Shooting Range, Hinata, backed by vocal home support, held her nerve even as Elavenil missed her mark ever so slightly. In the end, it all boiled down to a battle of wits. Hinata trailed by 0.2 points going into the 22nd shot; she fired a near-perfect 10.8 while Elavenil produced an under-par 10.3 to concede the lead. From 0.2 behind to 0.3 ahead, Hinata didn’t look back. Her final two shots were 10.6 and 10.2; Ela ended her day with 10.4 and 10.1 to finish 0.6 points behind.

“I’ve been to one Asian Games (2018) and two Olympics (2021 Tokyo and 2024 Paris) and was yet to win a Games medal. This is my first and I’ll cherish it for a long time,” Elavenil said.

Watching the final in India, her long-time coach Neha Chavan was delighted. “It’s a medal we have been chasing for a while. She was very raw in 2018 and couldn’t make the team in 2023 for Hangzhou. We knew we needed to work on her finals and we had prepared a lot for that. I’m relieved that she has gone beyond the bronze,” Chavan said, referring to Elavenil’s third-place results at the 2025 World Championships in Cairo and Munich World Cup last year.

The shooter, on her part, is holding off the celebrations until the mixed team event where she’ll pair with Parth Mane. “There are a few areas to focus on,” she said. “I feel my breath control could have been better, especially in the final few shots. There is a bit of disappointment especially after building a healthy lead. I look at it as a learning opportunity,” she said while insisting that pressure didn’t get the better of her.

“More than the pressure, it was about execution. I think I can work on the pace at which I should approach my shots. Usually I am very fast (in pulling the trigger). We have been experimenting a bit of late. We still have a lot more to learn and get better.”

Coach Chavan agreed. “Last 2-3 shots can rattle the best. Before you know, your mind starts playing tricks. You lose the sense of the present. The body starts behaving differently. The heart rate that was steady until then starts to go haywire. You are taught to shoot between beats, but neither your mind nor your body is steady,” she said.

“And then, you have the urge to press the trigger and get done with it. It is so tough to focus under so much tension. The trigger is very sensitive, and if you push it without conviction or without being fully ready, you won’t get the result you want.”

That late slip though shouldn’t take anything away from Elavenil’s clinical shooting. She entered the final in seventh place after aggregating 633.5 in the qualification but shot a perfect 10.9 on her opening shot in the final to signal her intent. In fact, 18 of her 24 shots were 10.5 or more.

“It was an amazing display of shooting. Technically and mentally, you could tell she was clued in. The gold medal is often decided on millimetres, but that apart, she was nearly perfect,” Chavan, who has been coaching Elavenil for 12 years, added.

The result means India’s quest for an individual gold in the highly-competitive 10m air rifle event continues at the Asian Games. Elavenil’s medal is only the sixth that Indians have won in the discipline, and it is only the second silver after her mentor Gagan Narang’s second-place finish in 2010. Fellow Indian Sonam Maskar, competing in her first Asian Games, ended sixth.

This was Elavenil’s second medal of the day, coming within a couple of hours after the team silver where she combined with Maskar and Vidarsa Vinod. The Indian trio tallied 1898 points to finish behind China who took gold with a world record score of 1904.2. Japan was third with a team score of 1897.1 points.