National Shooting Selection trials: Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar tops junior 50-metre rifle prone event

Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar finished second in men's 50-metre rifle behind Gagan Narang and won the juniors category in the National shooting selection trials.

Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar finished second behind Olympic medallist Gagan Narang in the men's event of the National shooting selection trials in Delhi on Tuesday.

Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar continued to excel as he finished second behind Olympic medallist Gagan Narang, and topped the juniors in the 50-metre rifle prone event in the National shooting selection trials at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Tuesday.

It was a light day in the 19th Kumar Surendra Singh Shooting championships with qualification process was in full swing in women’s air pistol and men’s rapid fire pistol. As it turned out, was a good outing for the elite shooters at the 50-metre range.

Tomar, who has already asserted his dominance in the more challenging rifle 3-position event with a touch of assurance, shot 621.5, as Gagan pipped him by 0.4 point.

Subhankar Pramanick was third ahead of a clutch of good shooters like Akhil Sheoran (620.3), Swapnil Kusale (619.3), Sushil Ghaley (619.2), Olympian Chain Singh (618.6), Asian Games silver medallist Deepak Kumar (615.4) and Olympian Sanjeev Rajput (615.30 who incidentally had won the gold in the event a day earlier.

Meanwhile, it was big improvement from the junior gold winning effort of Tomar who had shot 616.3.

Of course, prone event only serves as a training base for the 3-position event, as it has been dropped from the Olympic programme. It thus does not feature a final.

Joydeep Karmakar had placed fourth in the London Olympics in rifle prone.

The competition is expected to get tough at the 10-metre range on Wednesday, when the cream of women air pistol shooters like Abhidnya Patil, Annu Raj Singh, Chinki Yadav, Devanshi Rana, Esha Singh, Harshada Nithave, Harveen Srao, Heena Sidhu, Mahima Turhi Agrawal, Maliaka Goel, Pushpanjali Rana, Rahi Sarnobat, Shilpi Bisht, Shri Nivetha compete in the last batch for qualification, before the final for the top eight.

The men’s rapid fire section will have the second stage, followed by the final.

The results:

Trials-5 - 50m rifle prone:

Men: 1. Gagan Narang 621.9; 2. Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar 621.5; 3. Subhankar Pramanick 620.6.

Juniors: 1. Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar 621.5; 2. Rishi Gireesh 616.8; 3. Fateh Singh Dhillon 615.7.