As the National Selection trials three and four (T3 & T4) for Rifle/Pistol events in the Olympic sport of Shooting, commenced at Delhi’s Dr. Karni Singh Shooting range, four winners emerged from the four finals listed on day one on Tuesday.
Shiva Narwal of Haryana won the Men’s 10M Air Pistol T3 trials while Tokyo 2020 quota holder Chinki Yadav, helped Madhya Pradesh (M.P) win in the Women’s 25M Pistol. Also winning on the day were Tamil Nadu’s N. Gaayathri, who emerged triumphant in the Women’s 50M Rifle 3 Positions (3P) T3 final and the Army’s Pankaj Kumar, who topped the Men’s 10M Air Rifle T3 final.
In the Men’s 10M Air Pistol, Shiva shot a top-class 244.3 in the eight-man 24-shot final, to leave qualifying round topper Ravinder Singh of the Army in second place.
Uttar Pradesh’s Saurabh Chaudhary, current world number four and another of the Tokyo 2020 quota holders in the fray, matched Ravinder’s qualification score of 584 to make it to the finals in second spot, but finished third eventually with a score of 223.6. Ravinder ended just 0.3 points behind Shiva in the final, but also managed to beat Saurabh.
It was another tough fight in the Women’s 25M Pistol, with another Tokyo quota holder Manu Bhaker of Haryana, topping qualification with a score of 582. Chinki qualified fourth with 579, but ahead of her in third, was Asian Games champion Rahi Sarnobat of Maharashtra with a 581.
In the final however, Chinki got the better of both her higher ranked opponents, getting 37 hits out of a possible 50. Rahi was second with 34, while Manu came in third with 30.
In the Men’s 10M Air Rifle, Punjab’s Arjun Babuta continued a good trials run, topping the 60-shot qualification with a quality 631.5. Following him into the final were Tokyo quota holders Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar of M.P and the Air Force’s Deepak Kumar. The former shooting 629.9 for second spot while the latter qualified fourth with 629.2. Sandwiched among the quota holders in third qualifying spot was Pankaj with a score of 629.6.
He however turned the tables on all his eight rivals in the finals, finishing with a score of 250.8 to win. Arjun managed a second place finish with a score of 250.1 while Paarth Makhija of Delhi came third with 229.2.
India international N. Gaayathri, was in prime finals form in the Women’s 3P. She was only sixth in qualifying with a score of 1163, which was topped by M.P’s Sunidhi Chauhan with a score of 1170.
Two Tokyo quota holders in the fray, Punjab’s Anjum Moudgil and Maharashtra’s Tejaswini Sawant, shot 1163 and 1162 to make it to the finals in fourth and seventh positions respectively.
All fell short of the Tamil Nadu girl eventually though, as she won the grueling event with a finals score of 457.7. Sunidhi was second with 456 while Odhisa’s Shriyanka Sadangi came third with 445.6. Anjum and Tejaswini were fourth and fifth respectively.
