National selection trials: Heena Sidhu equals qualification world record

The young guns on Heena’s heel, the Youth Olympics gold medallist Manu Bhaker and the newly crowned national women’s, junior and youth champion Esha Singh, did well to take the top two positions ahead of Anuradha.

Heena Sidhu's qualification score of 587 put her in the lead. (File Photo)

Heena Sidhu shot a world record equalling score of 587 in qualification of women’s 10-metre air pistol to assert her class in the shooting National selection trials at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Wednesday.

Anna Korakaki of Greece had shot the world record 587 in the World Cup in Fort Benning, US, in May this year.

The young guns on Heena’s heel, the Youth Olympics gold medallist Manu Bhaker and the newly crowned national women’s, junior and youth champion Esha Singh, did well to take the top two positions ahead of Anuradha.

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Two-time Olympian Heena, with a rich record behind her including the World Cup Finals gold with a world record, placed fourth, but her qualification score of 587 put her in the lead, in the race for the team spots for the forthcoming international circuit.

After the 574 in the national championship in which she was placed sixth, this was a big leap back to confidence for the Dentist Heena.

Manu Bhaker was indeed a class act as she dominated the final with 242.1 to pip the 13-year-old Esha by 1.7 point. Esha had to worry about her qualification score of 571, which was 16 points behind Heena, and eight point behind Manu.

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In air rifle, Divyansh Singh Panwar was a class act as he topped all the three events - men, juniors and youth, to consolidate on his impressive performance in the earlier trial when he had topped in men’s and youth, while finishing third in juniors. Quite remarkably, Divyansh topped qualification with 630.4.

In women’s rifle 3-position, K.C. Hema topped with 457.3, 3.3 points ahead of world record holder Anjum Moudgil in the event. Meena Kumari placed third, ahead of Sunidhi Chauhan, Lajja Gauswami, Shreya Saksena and Kajal Saini.

Qualification topper Gaayathri Nithyanandam (1171) opted to skip the final and conserve energy for the next trial on the morrow.

In men’s centre fire pistol, Pemba Tamang topped with 585, ahead of Gurpreet Singh and Harpreet Singh, while Olympic silver medallist Vijay Kumar was fourth with 582, the same as Omkar Singh. Adarsh Singh who had topped the earlier trial was eighth with 581.