National shooting selection trials: Sandeep on top in air rifle

In the women’s 50-metre rifle 3-position event, former World Champion Tejaswini Sawant beat world record holder Anjum Moudgil by 0.9 point, after a modest qualification score of 1157.

Published : Mar 12, 2019 21:07 IST

Sandeep Singh had a memorable outing.

Sandeep Singh of the Army continued to show his class in air rifle finals, as he beat Tejas Krishna Prasad of Karnataka by 1.6 point in winning the fourth National shooting selection trials at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Tuesday.

The 23-year-old Sandeep, who had a hat-trick of gold medals in the recent Intershoot international competition at the Hague in the Netherlands, was able to assert himself in a highly competitive field that had Deepak Kumar, Ravi Kumar and Divyansh Singh Panwar who had represented the country in the World Cup at the same venue.

Asian Games silver medallist Deepak settled for the third place, after qualifying in the eighth place, 0.1 point ahead of fellow Air Force shooter Ravi Kumar.

Divyansh delights

Divyansh who had won the earlier trial, settled for the sixth place. Satyam Chauhan, Sahil, Himanshu Varma and Olympian Chain Singh were the others to make the final. Divyansh was able to top both the junior and youth sections as he had done earlier.

In the women’s 50-metre rifle 3-position event, former World Champion Tejaswini Sawant beat world record holder Anjum Moudgil by 0.9 point, after a modest qualification score of 1157.

Anjum was close to her best and put up an impressive qualification score of 1172, with 388 each in kneeling and standing, apart from 396 in prone. World Cup medallist Lajja Gauswami took the third place.

Kajal Saini, Sunidhi Chauhan, Namrata Arora, K.M. Rubina and K.C. Hema were the others to make the final.

Olympian Gurpreet Singh climbed to the top spot with 583 in men’s centre fire pistol, and was followed two points behind by the Olympic silver medallist Vijay Kumar.

The results

10m air rifle: Men: 1. Sandeep Singh 250.0 (627.5); 2. Tejas Krishna Prasad 248.4 (628.6); 3. Deepak Kumar 227.7 (626.7). Junior men: 1. Divyansh Singh Panwar 628.7; 2. Sheersh Aditya Kashyap 623.3; 3. Shuvam Basu 621.0. Youth men: 1. Divyansh Singh Panwar 628.7; 2. Sheersh Aditya Kashyap 623.3; 3. N. Srikrishna 617.8.

25m centre fire pistol: Men: Gurpreet Singh 583; 2. Vijay Kumar 581; 3. Wazeer Singh Rathee 580.

50m rifle 3-position: Women: 1. Tejaswini Sawant 458.0 (1157); 2. Anjum Moudgil 457.1 (1172); 3. Lajja Gauswami 444.5 (1157).