Shooting Olympic trials: Manu, Esha dominate in 25m sports pistol, Anish shines in rapid fire

Manu Bhaker and Esha Singh continued to assert their dominance in the 25-metre sports pistol as they both shot 586 in the fourth Shooting Olympic trials at the Madhya Pradesh Academy on Monday.

With the best three of four being taken into consideration for selection, Manu and Esha were comfortably ahead of the others.

World record holder and Olympic quota winner in the event, Rhythm Sangwan, had spoilt her chances with the two scores of 574 and 566 in Delhi in the first two trials. She did come up with a better fare 586 and 584 here, but found it hard to catch up.

While Manu and Esha will continue to fire away with similar resolve in the air pistol trials also, Rhythm has already got a better grip in that event in her bid to grab one of the two spots for Paris.

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Simranpreet Kaur Brar was pushing for one of the slots in sports pistol, but undid her good work with a 566 on Monday. Together with her second trial score of 577, Simranpreet fell from the race.

Anish Bhanwala tops in men’s 25-metre fire pistol

In men’s 25-metre rapid fire pistol, Anish Bhanwala was head and shoulder above the rest, as he wound up with 583 in the fourth trial. He could drop the first trial score of 578, as he had shot 582 and 587 in the next two. Ankur Goel and Adarsh Singh also shot 583 this day, but were never in the race for the Olympic berths.

Bhavesh Shekhawat sustained his good work with 581, which put him on par with Vijayveer Sidhu on the second spot. However, Vijayveer would nose ahead with the two bonus points for the Olympic quota that he had won.

Of course, there would be decimal bonus points for the top three in the finals on Tuesday, but that would not change the equations.

Results (qualification):