Shooting Selection Trials: Suruchi Singh wins women's 10m pistol event; Niraj Kumar completes double with men's 50m Rifle 3P win

Aishwary Pratap finished second while Olympic medallist Swapnil Kusale ended fourth in men’s 50m Rifle 3P event at the Shooting Selection Trials.

Suruchi Inder Singh continued her brilliant form in the season as she finished on top of both the final and qualification of T3 10m Pistol Women event of the National Shooting Selection Trials 3 & 4 (Rifle & Pistol) for Group ‘A’ athletes being held here at the Trishul Shooting Range, Maharana Pratap Sports College, Raipur.

Navy marksman Niraj Kumar completed the double in the 50m 3 Positions Men event with a win in T4 while Samrat Rana edged Saurabh Chaudhary to win the 10 m Air Pistol Men’s T3 final.

In a star studded final, Suruchi finished with a score of 245.6, 1.1 better of Manu Bhaker who shot 244.5 to finish in second place while Rahi Sarnobat finished in third with a score of 223.1. Esha Singh, Pranjali Prashant Dhumal. Simranpreet Kaur Brar, Priya Muralidhar and Sakshi Anil Suryavanshi occupied fourth to eighth spots respectively.

Suruchi was also way ahead of the field in the qualification round, finishing with a score of 585, four better than Esha Singh who shot 581. Rahi (580), Manu (578-20x), Priya (578-17x), Pranjali (576), Sakshi (574-18x) and Simranpreet (574-15x) completed the top eight.

In the first final of the day, Samrat Rana leaped to first place with a 10.5 in the final shot ahead of Saurabh who could only manage a 9.6. In the end, Samrat ended with a score of 241.7 while Saurabh took second place with a score of 241.5. Aditya Malra finished in third with a score of 217.8.

Also Read: Shooting Selection Trials: Anish Bhanwala wins men’s 25m rapid fire pistol, Narmada Nithin clinches 10m air rifle gold in Raipur

Earlier, Navy’s Aakash Bharadwaj finished on top of qualification with a score of 584, while Samrat, Rajan Tomar and Saurabh all shot 582 but finished second, third and fourth based on inner 10s. Places 5-7 were also decided on inner 10s after Kamaljeet, Aditya Malra and Amanpreet Singh shot 581 each.

Vikash Kumar took the last spot in the finals after having the most number of inner 10s among four shooters who shot a score of 580.

Niraj Kumar showcased a clinical performance in the 50m 3P Men’s final to win back to back trials after. The Navy man shot 463, two better than Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar who took home another podium finish. World Championships medalist Akhil Sheoran finished third with a score of 448.8 while Paris Olympics bronze medalist Swapnil Suresh Kusale finished outside the podium in fourth with a score of 438.4.

Goldi Gurjar (426.4), Nikhil Tanwar (415.3), Babu Singh Panwar (404.7) and Hemant Bhicher (403.1) completed the top eight.

Aishwary had finished on top of qualification with a brilliant score of 595-35x, while Niraj shot 592-32x. Nikhil Tanwar was third with a score of 591-34x and Swapnil followed with a 590-34x ahead of Akhil who shot 589-32x. Goldi Gurjar (588-31x), Babu Singh (588-30x) and Hemant (587-29x) completed the top eight places.

The trials will conclude tomorrow with the 10m pistol shooters returning for T4 qualification which will be followed by the finals.

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