A day to remember for Yashaswini and Abhishek

Junior World champion and Youth Olympics finalist Yashaswini Singh Deswal had a lot to cheer as she won the mixed air pistol gold with Abhishek Verma in the 18th Kumar Surendra Singh shooting championship at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Friday.

Published : Jun 22, 2018 19:10 IST

Abhishek Verma and Yashaswini Singh Deswal after winning the mixed air pistol gold in the Kumar Surendra Singh shooting championship in Delhi on Friday.

Junior World champion and Youth Olympics finalist Yashaswini Singh Deswal had a lot to cheer as she won the mixed air pistol gold with Abhishek Verma in the 18th Kumar Surendra Singh shooting championship at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Friday.

In the final, the Haryana pair beat Ruchita Vinerkar and Arjun Das of the Railways by 4.4 points for the gold, after having qualified in the second place with 767, four points behind Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).

Shweta Singh (386) and Amanrpeet Singh (385) who had helped ONGC top qualification had to be content with the bronze medal.

In the junior section, Punjab pair of Surinder Singh and Simranpreet Kaur pushed Haryana to the silver by a 4.6 point margin. Priya Raghav and Himanshu Tanwar had helped Haryana top qualification with 755.

Rajasthan which had pipped Maharashtra after the team had tied on 738 for the last berth in the final, managed to haul itself to the bronze medal, ahead of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.

In the youth final, Aarju Vaishnav and Lucky clinched the gold for Haryana, with a 14.7 point margin over Uttar Pradesh. It was an anti-climax, as Yuvika Tomar had no time to shoot the penultimate shot, in the three shot gold contest.

Overall, it was a power struggle literally, as electricity failed repeatedly in the final range, being used for the first time in the championship, and the absolute lack of air conditioning meant that the champions had to literally sweat it out.