Kumar Surendra Singh Shooting: Gauri Sheoran wins gold in women's sports pistol

Gauri Sheoran beat Olympian Annu Raj Singh 29-28 in a lively final, having earlier topped qualification with 577.

Coach Pavel Smirnov congratulates Gauri Sheoran for winning the gold in women's sports pistol in the Kumar Surendra Singh Shooting championship in Delhi on Sunday.

World University champion Gauri Sheoran did her confidence a lot of good as she won the gold in women’s sports pistol in the 19th Kumar Surendra Singh shooting championship at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Sunday.

The joy of 21-year-old Gauri was complete as she not only beat Olympian Annu Raj Singh 29-28 in a lively final, but had earlier topped qualification with 577. Shreya Gawande, who eventually finished seventh, had also shot 577, but Gauri had more inner 10s.

Quite steady through the final, Gauri shot between 2 to 4 in each round, with 10.2 or better counting for a hit, and each shooter firing five shots in a round.

Abhidnya Patil won the bronze medal, ahead of Chinki Yadav, while Yashaswini Singh Deswal, Devanshi Dhama and Devanshi Rana were the others to make the final.

Abhidhnya followed up her women’s bronze, with the gold in the junior section, as she beat Sneha Bhardwaj 28-26, with a penultimate perfect round of five. Arunima Gaur got the bronze.

Neha, Anjali Choudhary, Rana, Dhama and Esha Singh were the others to make the final, but could not make an impact.

In women’s air rifle, Shriyanka Sadangi beat Aayushi Gupta by 0.7 point for the gold, leaving qualification topper Mehuli Ghosh (631.3) settle for the bronze. Once she got into the lead at the half way stage, after 12 shots, Shriyanka was pretty strong except for a shot of 9.8, and stayed ahead through the second half.

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Shreya Agrawal, Aditi Shukla, Olympian Ayoika Paul, Shakti Chandra and Meenakshi were the others to make the final.

Mehuli returned to capture the junior gold ahead of Aakriti Dahiya and Shreya Agrawal, while Manini Kaushik placed fourth.

Meanwhile, in the fifth National selection trials, Kailash Chand beat Olympian and qualification topper Snajeev Rajput (1175) by 0.4 point for the first place, in men’s rifle 3-position. Another Olympian Chain Singh pipped the young Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar for the third place.

Aishwarya, who shot a modest 1155 in qualification, went on to win the junior event 15.7 point ahead of Harshit Binjwa.