National Shooting C'ships: Olympian Raiza Dhillon sets one and equals another national record

New Delhi/Bhopal, Dec 23 Olympian Raiza Dhillon of Haryana made the skeet finals in both women's senior and junior sections of the ongoing 67th National Shooting Championship Competitions (NSCC) for Shotgun events at New Delhi’s Dr. Karni Singh Shooting range (DKSSR), creating one new national record and equalling another en route.

Raiza, who represented India in the Paris Olympics, shot a score of 122, which helped her top both the junior women’s and women’s qualification rounds, was two better than Simranpreet Kaur Johal’s junior record of 120 achieved in the 2018 Jaipur Nationals and equal to Ganemat Sekhon’s effort at the recently held ISSF World Cup Final in Delhi.

Seasoned Ganemat, infact, followed Raiza into the six-woman final in the second spot with a tally of 118 hits over five rounds and two days of qualification. Madhya Pradesh’s Vanshika Tiwari and Rajasthan’s Yashasvi Rathore were among those who made both the junior and senior women’s finals.

Also shattering the junior men’s Skeet qualification national record on the day was Telangana’s Munek Battula, whose score of 123 was one better than Abhay Singh Sekhon’s 122 in Delhi in 2019.

In the men’s skeet qualification, Punjab’s Fatehbir Singh Shergill topped the field with a solid 123 over five rounds. The talented Munek Battula also shot the same score but settled for bib number 2 as he went down in a shoot-off to Fatehbir. Also into the final were two Olympians and among India’s best-known skeet shooters, Mairaj Ahmad Khan and Angad Vir Singh Bajwa.

Mairaj, the senior pro, shot 121, the same as Angad, to take the fifth spot after winning the shoot-off for bib numbers with his former India teammate. Both the experienced campaigners accounted for Paris Olympian Anant jeet Singh Naruka, who fell short finishing seventh with a score of 119.

Munek Battula also topped the field in the junior men’s skeet and will also play two finals on Tuesday, as will Bhavtegh Singh Gill of Punjab.

Punjab also won three of the four gold medals in the team competitions, with Ganemat Sekhon winning as part of their women’s team and Bhavtegh Gill and Harmehar Lally winning in both the junior and men’s team categories.

Shahu Mane wins first senior national title

Decorated international rifle shooter Shahu Tushar Mane of the Railways, clinched his first senior national title, winning gold in the men’s 10m Air Rifle event at Bhopal’s M.P. State Academy (MPSA) Shooting range.

Also hogging the limelight was former world champion Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil of Maharashtra, who shot a sizzling 254.9 to win the junior final, surpassing the existing senior finals world record held by Olympic Champion Sheng Lihao of China, by a margin of 0.4.

It was Shahu, however, who set the ball rolling on men’s Air Rifle Day at the MPSA finals hall, shooting nothing below 10.1 in the 24-shot final to win it by the barest of margins. The Kolhapur boy, who began shooting in 2015 and has won an ISSF World Cup gold in the air rifle mixed team as well as an individual silver in the Youth Olympics, managed to hold off a late surge by Dhanush Srikanth.

The talented Telangana shooter was left to rue the 9.8 he logged for his fifth shot, as he finished with 252.2, just 0.1 behind the winner. Both the gold and silver medallists shot identical 10.6 and 10.5 for their final two shots as excitement reached fever pitch in the stands.

Rajasthan’s Yash Vardhan won bronze, finishing ahead of Rudrankksh. Besides the Maharashtrian, the men’s final also had another Olympian Ravi Kumar in the field, with the Air Force shooter finishing eighth.

Rudrankksh sizzled in junior men’s final

Former world champion Rudrankksh Patil then managed to ward off the disappointment of the senior final, and perhaps in small measure, that of missing out on the Paris Olympics as well as he landed the junior men’s title with a virtuoso performance. His second shot was a 10.0, but besides that, there was nothing under 10.3 as he left silver winner Abishek Sekhar of Karnataka a big 3.5 points behind. Haryana’s Himanshu won bronze.

Himanshu wins gold in youth category

The talented young Haryana shooter featured in all three men’s individual finals on the day, finally winning gold in the men’s 10m Air Rifle Youth competition with a score of 253.0. It was his second medal of the day. Madhya Pradesh’s Yash Pandey was 2.2 behind in second while West Bengal’s Abhinav Shaw won bronze.