Kumar Surendra Singh Shooting Championship: Tomar wins double gold

Tomar had 45 shots twice in the two finals for a marathon day.

Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, who won both the men's and junior rifle 50-metre 3-position gold medals in the Kumar Surendra Singh shooting championship in Delhi on Saturday.

Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar came up with a classic double in themost gruelling 50-metre rifle 3-position event in the 19th KumarSurendra Singh shooting championship at the Dr. Karni Singh Range,Tughlaqabad, on Saturday.

The 18-year-old Tomar who is coached byformer world record holder and Olympic finalist Suma Shirur for thelast two years, was not too pleased with the qualification score of1160, but shot both the men’s and junior final with a touch ofassurance to bag both the gold medals.

Tomar shot 453.5 in the men’s final to beat Kailash Chand of Army by 0.7 point.

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Olympian andWorld Cup gold medallist Sanjeev Rajput, who had toppedqualification with 1165, finished fourth behind Ashish Gautam ofAir Force.

World Cup gold medallist Akhil Sheoran was fifth whileother leading shooters like Gagan Narang, Deepak Kumar and RaviKumar placed sixth to eighth in that order.

In the junior final,Tomar won with a better total of 454.1, and beat Harshit Binjwa byfour points.

‘’It was good in prone and standing positions, but thekneeling score was not good’’, said Tomar, who has a personal bestof 1173 in qualification in the international competition in CzechRepublic.

 ‘’I did not expect to win both the gold medals. But, Ihad won all the three rifle gold medals for juniors in thenational championship’’, said Tomar, speaking of his previous accomplishments.

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It was indeed a commendable fare, for shooting120 shots in qualification in such tough conditions was a challengein itself. On top of it, Tomar had 45 shots twice in the two finalsfor a marathon day.

Meanwhile, in the junior men’s sports pistol,World junior champion Vijayveer Sidhu pipped Adarsh Singh afterboth shot an identical score of 586. Vijay’s twin brother,Udhayveer, himself a World junior champion, was third ahead ofRajkumar Singh Sandhu.

In the women’s air rifle qualification,Mehuli Ghosh continued to assert her class with a total of 631.3,which was 0.2 point ahead of Aayushi Gupta. Shakti Chandra, ShreyaAgrawal, Olympian Ayonika Paul, Shriyanka Sadangi, Aditi Shula andMeenakshi were the others to make the women’s final, which will beheld on Sunday morning.

Vinita Bhardwaj and Meghana Sajjanar missedthe final by 0.1 and 0.4 point respectively.