Mehuli, Anish, Ganga win at national selection trials in Bhopal

Paris Olympic quota holders Mehuli Ghosh and Anish Bhanwala of Haryana registered wins in the first finals of the national rifle-pistol selection trials 3 and 4 in Bhopal on Sunday.

Army marksman Ganga Singh won the day’s final competition, clinching the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions event with plenty to spare.

Mehuli of West Bengal qualified for the top eights with a characteristically solid 631.5 in the first 60-shot round. Tamil Nadu’s R. Narmada Nithin topped with 632.5.

Mehuli clinched a Paris Olympic quota place in the women’s air rifle event along with an individual bronze medal in the World Championship in Baku, Azerbaijan, in August 2023.

Anish, meanwhile, won a quota place in the men’s 25m rapid-fire pistol event at the Asian Shooting Championships 2023 in Changwon, the Republic of Korea, in October last year.

En route, the 21-year-old Indian shooter also secured India’s 12th Paris 2024 Olympic quota in shooting and the first in the men’s 25m pistol event.

India won a record 19 quota places for the Paris Olympics, surpassing its tally of 15 quota places earned at the Tokyo Olympics.