In 45 years of Paralympic shooting, India had not won a medal of any colour.

That all changed at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games, as 19-year-old Avani Lekhara equaled the world record in the R2 - women’s 10m air rifle standing SH1 to take gold.

"I can't describe this feeling, I'm feeling like I'm on top of the world. It's unexplainable,” Lekhara, the first Indian woman to win Paralympic gold in any sport, said afterward.

Lekhara was the only shooter in the final to produce a perfect 10.9 score, but faltered towards the end with two 9.9s in the last two elimination rounds. However, she had built up enough of a buffer to hold on to first place.

"I was just saying one thing - that I have to take one shot at a time. There's nothing else matters now, just take one shot at a time and just finish it,” Lekhara said of her anxious closing moments.

Cuiping Zhang took the silver medal and emotional Iryna Shchetnik from Ukraine made her first Paralympic podium with bronze.

According to Paralympic.org