Shooting
National Shooting C'ships: Ganemat Sekhon wins women's skeet gold
It was the shooter's second consecutive national title in women's skeet.
Saketh shot down 50 out of the 60 allotted final targets. (Photo Credit: The Tribune)
Ganemat Sekhon of Punjab underlined her supremacy in women’s skeet shooting in India, snaring a second successive national title, with a confident display in the individual women’s final of the 67th National Shooting Championship Competitions at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range on Tuesday.
Saketh shot down 50 out of the 60 allotted final targets, to comfortably relegate state-mate Asees Chhina, who managed 46 hits, to silver. Olympian Raiza Dhillon took bronze.
Also, on skeet finals day, a young Bhavtegh Singh Gill, the recently crowned World University champion, made it a clean sweep for Punjab in the senior skeet competitions, bagging his maiden national title with a score of 54 in the men’s skeet final.
Fatehbir Singh Shergill of Air India shot three targets less for silver, while Olympian Mairaj Ahmad Khan of Uttar Pradesh bagged the bronze with 43 hits out of the first 50 targets.
In Bhopal, where the rifle nationals are underway at the M.P. State Academy Shooting range, Karthik Sabari Raj R and Narmada Nithin of Tamil Nadu, bossed the 10m air rifle mixed team competition with a relatively comfortable 16-6 result in their favour, over a strong Railway pairing featuring Olympian Arjun Babuta and recent ISSF World Cup Finals medal winner Sonam Uttam Maskar.
The host state’s Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar and Gautami Bhanot won bronze.
Three golds for Gill
Gill bagged three golds overall, winning the men’s and junior men’s team titles as well, earlier on Monday.
It was also a second gold of the competition for Sekhon, as she had also won the women’s team event alongside Parinaaz Dhaliwal and Jasmeen Kaur.
In the junior men’s final, Ishan Singh Libra of Haryana, won a thriller, edging out the just crowned national champ Gill 6-5 in a shoot-off to decided gold, after both had tied on 52-hits.
The final gold of the day and Haryana’s second, was won by Dhillon, after she eased to victory in the junior women’s skeet final.
Her tally of 53, too good for second placed Vanshika Tiwari of Madhya Pradesh, who managed 47. Yashasvi Rathore of Rajasthan won bronze.
Karthik/Narmada win air rifle mixed team gold in Bhopal
Elsewhere, at the MPSA range in Bhopal, Karthik and Narmada first tallied 632 in qualification to bag the second spot and make the gold medal match.
Arjun and Sonam finished on top with an aggregate just 0.4 more than the Tamil Nadu pair.
The tables however, were turned in the gold face-off.
Rajasthan’s Yash Vardhan and Devanshi Katara won the junior mixed air rifle, outgunning Tilottama Sen and Abishek Sekhar of Karnataka 16-8 in the final. Maharshtra won bronze.
In the Youth category, the pair of Abhinav Shaw and Sandrata Roy won gold for West Bengal with a close 16-14 result over Taniyu Sirangi and Vijendla Bhanu Praneeth of Andhra Pradesh.
Madhya Pradesh won bronze when Gautami and Satyarth Patel defeated Haryana’s Jain and Ameerah 17-11 in the bronze match.
