National Shooting Championship: Aayushi, Vikrant strike gold

The 63rd National Shooting Championship is taking place in Bhopal.

REPRESENTATIVE PHOTO: The Uttar Pradesh team outplayed the Army duo of Harshita Dahiya and Pankaj Kumar 18-6 for the gold, after having qualified in the second place for the final, 0.3 point behind the Army team.

Aayushi Gupta and Vikrant Sharma paced themselves through two spells of qualification to eventually strike gold for Uttar Pradesh in mixed air rifle in the 63rd National shooting championship on Saturday. The Uttar Pradesh team outplayed the Army duo of Harshita Dahiya and Pankaj Kumar 18-6 for the gold, after having qualified in the second place for the final, 0.3 point behind the Army team. Interestingly, in the first qualification stage, Uttar Pradesh was in the seventh place among eight teams that made the cut. The Haryana pair of Arshdeep Singh and Vinita Bhardwaj, which had topped the first stage with 626.1 ahead of Mehuli Ghosh and Srinjoy Datta, did not complete the second stage, as Arshdeep's rifle malfunctioned.

READ: Divyansh Singh dominates National Shooting Championship Mehuli and Srinjoy, who missed the chance to fight for gold by 0.2 point to the eventual champions, finished third as they beat the Chandigarh team of Disha Jadhav and Gagandeep Singh 17-13. In the youth mixed air rifle, it was a similar story, as Haryana, which qualified in the eighth place in the first stage, went on to beat the Himachal team of Zeena Khitta and Surya Pratap Singh Banshtu 16-12 for the gold. Maharashtra pair of Janhavi Khanvilkar and Rudranksh Patil which won the youth bronze, had won the junior gold by beating Mehuli Ghosh and Srinjoy Datta 17-13.  

The results: 50m rifle prone: Men: 1. Om Prakash Choudhary 622.8; 2. Akhil Sheoran 621.9; 3. Niraj Kumar 620.2. Juniors: 1. Niraj Kumar 620.2; 2. Fateh Singh Dhillon 618.4; 3. Surya Pratap Singh Banshtu 618.1. Mixed air rifle: 1. Uttar Pradesh (Aayushi Gupta, Vikrant Sharma) 16 (4185.8; 622.1); 2. Army (Harshita Dahiya, Pankaj Kumar) 8 (416.1; 623.3); 3. West Bengal (Mehuli Ghosh, Srinjoy Datta) 17 (415.6; 623.8); 4. Chandigarh (Disha Jadhav, Gagandeep Singh) 13 (414.5; 622.4). Juniors: 1. Maharashtra (Janhavi Khanvilkar, Rudrankksh Patil) 17 (417.4; 621.2); 2. West Bengal (Mehuli Ghosh, Srinjoy Datta) 13 (418.7; 621.8); 3. Rajasthan (Manini Kaushik; Divyansh Singh Panwar) 17 (416.0; 626.4); 4. Karnataka (Natasha Jhaveri, TR Srijay) 15 (415.6; 622.3). Youth: 1. Haryana (Ramita, sidharth Gaur) 16 (415.0; 616.5); 2. Himachal Pradesh (Zeena Khitta, Surya Pratap Singh Banshtu) 12 (418.1; 622.1); 3. Maharashtra (Janhavi khanvilkar, Rudrankksh Patil) 16 (412.1; 616.9); 4. Uttar Pradesh (Vidisha Saxena, Vidit Jain) 8 (414.3; 618.9).