Himanshu, Sift, Esha shine in shooting trials

The national selection trials 5 and 6 for Group A rifle and pistol shooters, currently underway at the DKSSR, assume greater significance as the Indian teams for the World Championships and the Asian Games are set to be selected right after the ongoing event.

New Delhi: Himanshu Talan of Indian Army was the centre of attraction at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range here on Monday, stunning a quality field to win the sixth (T6) men's 10m air rifle national selection trials. Sift Kaur Samra in the women's 50m rifle 3 positions (3P) and Esha Singh in the women's 25m pistol also emerged winners in their respective events.

The national selection trials 5 and 6 for Group A rifle and pistol shooters, currently underway at the DKSSR, assume greater significance as the Indian teams for the World Championships and the Asian Games are set to be selected right after the ongoing event. Himanshu denied reigning air rifle world champion Rudrankksh Patil, who has otherwise been shooting brilliantly to reach two finals in two days and finished fourth and second respectively.

The Army man finished with a total of 252.9 after the 24-shot final, 0.9 ahead of the world champion. He did not shoot a single nine throughout and recorded four scores of 10.8, including his 24th shot, and five scores of 10.7. Hriday Hazarika of Assam finished third on the day to go with a second in the T5 on Monday. He would be happy though that he topped qualification with a score of 632. Elsewhere, Punjab's Sift looked in a different league in the women's 3P. She shot a 592 first in qualification to top it, which was a repeat of the T5 trial qualification performance on Sunday.

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Then she won the 45-shot final by finishing a huge four points ahead of second placed Manini Kaushik of Rajasthan. Sift had opened up a massive gap over the field after the first 15 kneeling shots itself and never looked back. State-mate Anjum Moudgil was third. The first final of the day was the women's 25m pistol T5 and most known names made it to the top eight.

Esha of Telangana, who topped qualification with a score of 587, was not the quickest off the blocks, but a late charge saw her and Maharashtra's Abhidnya Ashok Patil finish on the same score of 34 after 10-series of five rapid-fire shots each. The ensuing shoot-off ended 3-1 in favour of the Hyderabadi and that will boost her confidence as well considering the likes of Manu Bhaker (fifth) and Chinki Yadav (fourth) were also part of the field. Haryana's Vibhuti Bhatia finished third. In the corresponding junior events, Punjab's Simranpreet Kaur Brar won the women's 25m pistol, Sakshi Sunil Padekar of NCC won the women's 3P while West Bengal's Srinjoy Datta bagged the junior men's 10m air rifle title. (PTI)