Chinki Yadav, N Gaayathri, Shiva Narwal And Pankaj Kumar Win In Shooting Trials

The likes of Chinki Yadav and N. Gaayathri won their respective finals even as the more established names, such as Saurabh Chaudhary and Manu Bhakar, fell behind on the first day of third and fourth trials for India's rifle and pistol shooters. Four different teams emerged winners in the four finals in New Delhi on Tuesday. The trials (T3 and T4) are being held at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range. Haryana won the men's 10m air pistol T3 trials through Shiva Narwal, while Tokyo Olympics quota holder Chinki helped Madhya Pradesh prevail in the women's 25m pistol.

Also winning on the day were Tamil Nadu's N. Gaayathri, who emerged triumphant in the women's 50m rifle 3 positions (3P) T3 final and the Army's Pankaj Kumar, who topped the men's 10m air rifle T3 final. In the men's 10m air pistol, Shiva shot a top-class 244.3 in the eight-man 24-shot final, leaving qualifying topper Ravinder Singh of the Army in second place.

Uttar Pradesh's Saurabh Chaudhary, current world number four and also a Tokyo Games quota holder, matched Ravinder's qualification score of 584 to make it to the finals in second spot, but finished third eventually with a score of 223.6.

Ravinder ended just 0.3 points behind Shiva in the final, but managed to beat Saurabh. It was a tough fight in the women's 25m pistol, with another Olympic quota holder, Manu Bhaker of Haryana, topping the qualification with a score of 582.

Chinki qualified fourth with 579, but ahead of her in third place was Asian Games champion Rahi Sarnobat of Maharashtra, with a 581.

In the final however, Chinki got the better of both her higher ranked opponents, getting 37 hits out of a possible 50.

Rahi was second with 34, while Manu came in third with 30. In the men's 10m air rifle, Punjab's Arjun Babuta continued his good run in the trials, topping the 60-shot qualification with a quality 631.5.

Following Babuta into the final were Tokyo quota holders Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar of MP and the Air Force's Deepak Kumar. N. Gaayathri was in prime finals form in the women's 3P position.

She was only sixth in qualifying with a score of 1163, which was topped by MP's Sunidhi Chauhan with a score of 1170.

Two Tokyo quota holders in the fray, Punjab's Anjum Moudgil and Maharashtra's Tejaswini Sawant, shot 1163 and 1162 respectively to make the finals in fourth and seventh positions respectively.

However, all fell short in the final of the event as Gaayathri won with a score of 457.7. Sunidhi was second with 456 while Odhisa's Shriyanka Sadangi came third with 445.6. Anjum and Tejaswini finished fourth and fifth respectively.