Shooting Nationals: Results and Analysis of all completed events; Manu, Rahi, Sanjeev and Panwar shine


Shooting Nationals: Results and Analysis of all completed events; Manu, Rahi, Sanjeev and Panwar shine

WhatsApp Image 2019 12 13 at 4.00.28 AM

A number of events have been completed at the 63rd National Shooting Championships in Rifle/Pistol. The 10m Air Rifle Women competition has already been discussed in detail. Here are some highlights and brief analysis of other seniors events.

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10m Air Rifle Men

This event was won by the ISSF Golden Target Award winner and rifle prodigy Divyansh Singh Panwar who shot 250.4 in the finals and had a qualification score of 628.6. The Silver and Bronze were also won by youngsters: 18 year old 50m 3P Olympic quota winner Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar and 16 year old Yash Vardhan. The veteran Deepak Kumar finished fourth. The qualification was topped by Rajpreet Singh who shot an excellent 631, while Deepak was 8th after scoring 628.1.

Unlike the stiff competition in Women’s AR, Deepak and Divyansh are almost assured of making it to the Olympic squad in the Men’s event. However this competition again highlighted the rapid strides Indian teenage shooters are making. For shooting fans these are exciting times .

50M Rifle Prone Men

This is a non-Olympic event, having no finals. The Gold was won by Om Prakash Choudhary who shot 622.8. Silver and Bronze went to Akhil Sheoran and Niraj Kumar who shot 621.9 and 620.2.

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50m Rifle Three Position Men

The veteran Sanjeev Rajput won this event after scoring 459.6 in the final. He also topped the qualification after shooting 1176. Next year’s Olympics will probably be the last for him, and he would be a dark horse among the medal contenders. Silver was won by 2016 Olympian Chain Singh, and Bronze went to Rahul Poonia. Aishwary finished fourth in the finals after coming second in qualification with a score of 1175. The finals cut-off was 1163.

25m Pistol Women

There were no surprises here. India’s top two shooters in this event, Rahi Sarnobat and Manu Bhaker finished first and second respectively both in the qualifications and the finals. The Bronze was won by Abhidnya Ashok Patil. Rahi in fact shot a World Record score of 41 in the finals, and qualified with an amazing 589. Manu shot 32 and qualified with a score of 582.

The gap between these two and the others can be seen from the fact that no other shooter went past 577 in the qualifications. The eighth placed shooter scored 574.

Again this performance raises hopes for the Olympics, but it should be remembered that Manu has not won a single medal in this event at any international competition, not even at the easier CWGs. Hopefully she takes it up as a challenge.

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Chinki Yadav, who won the Olympic quota at the Asian Championships had a bad outing and placed 24th with a total of 567. This increases the likelihood of her quota going to someone else.

10m Rifle Mix Team

This event was won by Vikrant Sharma and Ayushi of UP, while the silver went to Harshita and Pankaj Kumar from Army. Mehuli won the bronze for WB along with Srinjoy Datta.