Jitu Rai wins gold in 50m pistol event with record score

12/30/2017

Jitu Rai grabbed the men's 50m pistol national title with a new national record score of 233 at the 61st National Shooting Championship in Thiruvananthapuram on Friday. Navy's Omkar Singh (222.0) and his teammate Jai Singh (198.4) secured silver and bronze medals respectively, in the final round.

In the qualification round, India's ace marksman Jitu showed his dominance by leading the list with a score of 559.0 score while Amanpreet (553.0), Omprakash Mitharwal (Army, 552), Ravinder (Air Force, 551), Rajkanwar Singh Sandhu (pun, 550), Omkar (549), Jai (547) and Gurpal Singh (547) completed the next seven spots.

Rio olympian PN Prakash, Samaresh Jung and the father-son duo of Ashok and Ronak Pandit were among those who missed the cut from the 200 competitors. Rai's score of 233 was a new record in the finals of the event. Amanpreet Singh of ONGC, who set the old record (226.9) last month in New Delhi, finished sixth with a score of 146.8.

Rai also won the team gold in the event along with Jai and Omprakash Mitherwal for a total of 1658. Team Air Force, who managed a total of 1626, won silver while Punjab clinched a bronze with a score of 1624.

In the Junior Men’s 50m pistol event, Punjab’s Arjun Singh Cheema won the title shooting 226.5 in the final. Surinder Singh, his state-mate, shot 221.9 for silver while Anmol Jain of Haryana won bronze with 205.1. Arjun and Surinder along with Mankaran Preet Singh also won the Junior Men’s team gold in the event, where Haryana and Delhi won silver and bronze respectively.

A total of 4800 men and women shooters from all over the country are participating in the 61st Shooting Nationals that include 200 wildcard entries.