Sonam Maskar tops women’s air rifle

Podium finish: Ananya Naidu, topper Sonam Maskar and Arya Borse in women’s air rifle in the National shooting trials. | Photo: Special Arrangement

World Cup Final silver medallist, Sonam Maskar asserted her class yet again as she topped the women’s air rifle event with a score of 253.2, beating the national champion Ananya Naidu by 1.3 points, in the National shooting trials at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Tuesday.

The 22-year-old Sonam had earlier topped qualification with 633.9. Arya Borse placed third ahead of former world No.1, Olympian Elavenil Valarivan, who shot the second best qualification score of 632.6.

Sanjeeta Das, Rajshree Sancheti, Olympian Ayonika Paul and Hitexa Parmar were the others to make the final.

World Championship silver medallist Mehuli Ghosh shot 629.8 and missed the final by half point, the same as Shriyanka Sadangi. Asian Games medallist Ramita Jindal also missed the final by 0.6 point.

In men’s 25-metre rapid fire pistol, Olympian Anish Bhanwala was brilliant, shooting 590 in qualification. Incidentally, the qualification scores play a significant part in the selection of the shooters for the national team. Anish had won the first trial after qualifying with 581.

Neeraj Kumar who had qualified with a modest score of 579, was unstoppable in the final and beat Anish 34-31 for the first place. Olympian Vijayveer Sidhu placed third ahead of Bhavesh Shekhawat, Omkar Singh and Raajwardan Patil.

The results:

10m air rifle: Women: 1. Sonam Maskar 253.2 (633.9); 2. Ananya Naidu 251.9 (632.1); 3. Arya Borse 229.8 (632.3).

25m rapid fire pistol: Men: 1. Neeraj Kumar 34 (579); 2. Anish Bhanwala 31 (590); 3. Vijayveer Sidhu 27 (580).