Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Rajeshwari Kumari win trap trials, Sarabjot aces pistol division
Manavjit Singh Sandhu, a four-time Olympian and former world champion, used all of his expertise to win the men's trap event at the shotgun national selection trials, which came to an end here on Tuesday.
Rajeshwari Kumari, an international for India and holder of the national record, won the women's trap T3 (third) trial at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting range to improve her self-confidence before the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Shotgun in Cairo, which begins on April 25.
In Bhopal, where the T3 and T4 rifle/pistol trials were concluded, Haryana's Sarabjot Singh and fellow state competitor Anuradha Devi won the men's and women's 10m air pistol T4 trials, respectively. Singh is India's most recent ISSF World Cup gold medalist.
Manavjit needed two good rounds on day two of qualifying to give himself a shot after missing five targets on day one. He came through with rounds of 24 and 25, placing fourth following a shoot-off to determine the order of finish.
In the second semifinal, where he finished in second place after hitting 21 of 25 birds, he advanced to the final. He missed first and early in the final, but he admits that this sharpened his attention, which allowed him to finish with 14 consecutive shots and defeat Lakshjeet Singh Sindhu with three targets left to play.
In the final, Manav had 29 hits versus Lakshjeet's 25, out of the first 32 targets. In addition, Rajeshwari had to undergo a few shoot-offs in order to reach her final. She placed eighth in qualification, where rankings were initially established, and then defeated previous Commonwealth Games winner Shreyasi Singh in the semi-final.
But in the final, she remained calm and focused, hitting 30 targets against Manish Keer's 27, which helped her win. Bakhtyaruddin Malek and Aashima Ahlawat won the junior men's and women's trap divisions with scores of 117 and 114, respectively.
In the men's 10m air pistol T4 trials gold match in Bhopal, Sarabjot kept up his winning ways at the same location where he had won his first career ISSF World Cup gold a month earlier, defeating Punjab's Arjun Singh Cheema 16-12. Following Shiva Narwal's 17-7 victory over Arjun on Monday in the T3 trials, Arjun had the same outcome for the second day in a row. Shiva Narwal is the best buddy of Sarabjot.
Saurabh Chaudhary, a former world number one, placed eighth overall and seventh in qualifying with a score of 582. Arjun came in second in the ranking round but won qualification with a score of 586, while Sarabjot finished third in qualifying with a score of 583 before winning the ranking round.
In the women's 10m air pistol T4 trials, Anuradha Devi defeated Palak 17-11 in a match between two Haryanvis. Prior to this, Palak had won both the qualifying round and the ranking round with scores of 579 and 252.5, ahead of Anuradha's scores of 573 and 250.6. Both victories in the junior 10m air pistol division went to Haryana, as Varsha Singh and Sagar Bhargava took top honours.