National shooting selection trials: Double delight for Mehuli

Commonwealth Games silver medallist Mehuli Ghosh mustered all her motivation to prevail over the best of air rifle shooters in the country in the seventh National shooting selection trials at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Wednesday.

Mehuli Ghosh repeated her performance of topping both the women’s and junior events in the sixth trial on Tuesday, with an exemplary fare as she beat qualification-topper Elavenil Valarivan by 0.9 point in the women’s event and Shreya Agrawal by 0.7 point for the junior honour.

Commonwealth Games silver medallist Mehuli Ghosh mustered all her motivation to prevail over the best of air rifle shooters in the country in the seventh National shooting selection trials at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Wednesday.

The 18-year-old Mehuli repeated her performance of topping both the women’s and junior events in the sixth trial on Tuesday, with an exemplary fare as she beat qualification-topper Elavenil Valarivan by 0.9 point in the women’s event and Shreya Agrawal by 0.7 point for the junior honour.

Drive to excel

Having been reduced to competing in the MQS section this year in the World Cups, Mehuli had the drive to prove better than the top-three shooters of the world — Apurvi Chandela, Anjum Moudgil and Elavenil.

With the cushion of the merit points boosting their averages, the Olympic quota winners Anjum and Apurvi have the liberty to keep tuning their technique without worrying much about the scores. Moreover, it is the qualification scores that play a major role in deciding the averages of a shooter for national team selection.

In the event, Shreya placed third, ahead of Anjum Moudgil who missed out on a chance to finish better by 0.3 point. Apurvi was sixth behind Khushi Saini, and ahead of Shreya Saksena and Barkha Chauhan.

Anjali Mandar Bhagwat, Vinita Bhardwaj, Ayonika Paul and Shriyanka Sadangi were some of the prominent shooters who could not make the final in a strong field of 305 shooters..

Zeena Khitta continued to top the youth women’s air rifle.

In top form

In men’s 25-metre rapid fire pistol, Arpit Goel was in top form, shooting 587 in qualification and following it up well in the final, as he beat the 15-year-old Harshwardhan Yadav 30-28.

Udhayveer Sidhu topped the juniors ahead of the two leading shooters Anish Bhanwala and Adarsh Singh.

In men’s 50-metre rifle 3-position event, World Cup gold-medallist Akhil Sheoran topped, half a point ahead of the young Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar. The latter topped the junior event, 3.8 points ahead of Nitish Kumar.

The results Men 25m rapid fire pistol: 1. Arpit Goel 30 (587); 2. Harshwardhan Yadav 28 (581); 3. Udhayveer Sidhu 25 (583). Juniors: 1. Udhayveer Sidhu 32 (583); 2. Anish Bhanwala 29 (577); 3. Adarsh Singh 23 (580). 50m rifle 3-position: 1. Akhil Sheoran 455.5 (1163); 2. Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar 455.0 (1164); 3. Satyendra Singh 443.5 (1164). Juniors: 1. Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar 454.9 (1164); 2. Nitish Kumar 451.1 (1157); 3. Akash Patidar 442.1 (1154). Women 10m air rifle: 1. Mehuli Ghosh 251.9 (629.2); 2. Elavenil Valarivan 251.0 (631.1); 3. Shreya Agrawal 228.3 (631.0). Juniors: 1. Mehui Ghosh 252.7 (629.2); 2. Shreya Agrawal 252.0 (631.0); 3. Aakriti Dahiya 229.4 (625.6). Youth: 1. Zeena Khitta 251.1 (624.9); 2. Atmika Gupta 248.8 (623.1); 3. Aakriti Dahiya 227.4 (625.6).