Former world champion and four-time Olympian Manavjit Singh Sandhu drew on all his experience to win the men’s trap competition in the shotgun national selection trials, which concluded here on Tuesday.
India international and national record holder Rajeshwari Kumari won the women’s trap T3 (third) trial at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting range to boost her confidence ahead of the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Shotgun in Cairo, starting April 25.
India’s most recent ISSF World Cup gold medal winner Sarabjot Singh of Haryana clinched the men’s 10m air pistol T4 trial while state-mate Anuradha Devi won the women’s air pistol T4 match in Bhopal, where the T3 and T4 rifle/pistol trials also ended.
After missing five targets on day one of qualification, Manavjit needed two strong rounds on day two to give himself a chance. He delivered, with rounds of 24 and 25, to finish fourth, after a shoot-off to decide rankings.
He then made the final with a second-place finish in the second semifinal, striking 21 of the 25 birds.
In the final, he was the first to miss and he missed early but that, by his own admission, led to enhanced focus and he finished with 14 straight hits to snuff out the challenge of Lakshjeet Singh Sindhu with three targets to spare.
Manav got 29 hits in the first 32 targets in the final to Lakshjeet’s 25.
Rajeshwari also had to endure shoot-offs, a couple of them en route to her final. The first to determine rankings in qualification where she finished seventh, and then in the semi-final, where she overcame former Commonwealth Games champion Shreyasi Singh.
In the final, however, she was composed and focused, hitting 30 targets to second placed Manish Keer’s 27, to seal victory.
In the junior men’s and women’s trap classifications, Bakhtyaruddin Malek and Aashima Ahlawat emerged on top with scores of 117 and 114 respectively.
Sarabjot wins again, Anuradha surprises Palak
In Bhopal, Sarabjot continued with his winning form at the venue where he had won his first career ISSF World Cup gold a month back, defeating Punjab’s Arjun Singh Cheema 16-12 in the men’s 10m air pistol T4 trials gold match.
Arjun suffered the same result for the second day running, after Sarabjot’s best friend Shiva Narwal had won 17-7 against him on Monday in the T3 trials.
The field had former world number one Saurabh Chaudhary in it and he finished fifth in qualifying with a score of 582 and eighth overall.
Sarabjot was third in qualifying with 583 before topping the ranking round, while Arjun came second in the ranking round, but topped qualification with a score of 586.
In a battle of two Haryanvis, Anuradha Devi upstaged Palak 17-11 in the women’s 10m air pistol T4 trials.
Earlier Palak had topped qualifying with a score of 579 as well as the ranking round with a score of 252.5 ahead of Anuradha’s 573 and 250.6.
Both wins in the junior 10m air pistol category also when to Haryana, where Sagar Bhargava and Varsha Singh emerged winners.
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