National Shooting Trials: Simranpreet pips Esha in women’s 25m sports pistol, Manu finishes third

Double Olympic medallist Manu Bhaker continued from where she had left in Paris, as she topped qualification in the 25m sports pistol in the National shooting trials at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Monday.

Manu shot 587, to be two points ahead of the eventual winner of the final, Simranpreet Kaur Brar. In the final, Simranpreet beat Esha Singh 36-35. Esha compensated for her low score of 578 with a sterling performance in the final, as Manu pushed to the third place.

Arshdeep Kaur, Abhidnya Patil, Annu Raj Singh, TS Divya and world record holder Rhythm Sangwan were the others to make the final. Meanwhile, Multiple World Cup gold medallist Rahi Sarnobat shot 575 and placed 10th.’

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World champion Rudrankksh Patil continued to strengthen his position by topping both qualification and final in 10-metre air rifle. He beat Hriday Hazarika by 1.9 points in the final after both had shot 633.0 in qualification.

World University championship silver medallist, Smit Moradiya placed third ahead of Umamahesh Maddineni, Niraj Kumar, Arjun Babuta, Surya Pratap Banshtu and former world No.1 Divyansh Singh Panwar. The scores were pretty high for everyone with the least being 631.9, in making the final.

Equally, Asian Games gold medallist and world record holder Sift Kaur Samra continued to assert her class as she topped both qualification and final with a dominant performance, in the women’s rifle 3-position event. Sift shot 595 in qualification and then 469.8 in the final, which was 0.2 point better than her world record shot in the Asian Games in Hangzhou.

Surabhi Bharadwaj climbed to the third place ahead of Nischal, Ashi Chouksey, Ayushi Podder, Bhakti Bhaskar and Heena Gohei.

Anjum Moudgil (589) and Manini Kaushik (588) missed the final this time, after faring well in the first trial.