National Shooting Selection Trials: Divyansh Singh Panwar Smashes World Record

Tokyo 2020 quota holders shone through on competition day two of the National Selection Trials 3 and 4 for Rifle/Pistol events, being held at Dr. Karni Singh Shooting range in New Delhi. Among the winners on Wednesday were Divyansh Singh Panwar (Men's 10M Air Rifle T4), Saurabh Chaudhary (Men's 10M Air Pistol T4), Chinky Yadav (Women's 25M Pistol T4) and Tejaswini Sawant (Women's 50M Rifle 3 Positions T4). The performance of the day came from young Divyansh Singh Panwar of Rajasthan, as he smashed the finals world record with a score of 253.1 to emerge on top of the Men's 10M Air Rifle T4 trials.

After qualifying third with a score of 629.7, Divyansh outgunned a field full of young Indian talent to win the final on the last shot, from yet another Tokyo quota holder Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar.

The two were involved in a seesaw battle from supremacy from the 12thsingle shot onwards and went into the 24thand final shot tied at 242.2. They were also tied at the end of the 23rdshot at 232.

Current world number one Divyansh, then showed his quality, with a classy 10.9 in the final shot to easily go past the world record. Aishwary hit an equally commendable 10.4, to fall short of the record mark of 252.8, by just 0.2 points.

Saurabh Chaudhary continued his dominance of the Men's 10M Air Pistol winning the T4 trial with a 243.1 in the finals. Sarabjot Singh of Haryana was second and Ravinder Singh of the Army, the winner of the T3 trials yesterday, came in third.

Saurabh has now won two of the four trials conducted this year and made it to all the finals, besides coming out top at 1st Asian Online Shooting Championship held last month.

Another Tokyo 2020 quota holder who has been having a good run in the trials is Chinky Yadav and the Madhya Pradesh girl did her cause no harm, coming up trumps in the Women's 25m Pistol T4 competition, backing up the T3 victory in the same event she had on Tuesday.

Chinky also has made it to all the four trial finals this year and now has won two of them. She shot 37 in the final to leave Tejaswini of Haryana behind on 33. Manu Bhaker also made it to another final, topping qualification with a solid 587. She, however, finished fifth in the finals.

The final winner of the day was Tejaswini Sawant in the Women's 50M Rifle 3 Positions T4 event. She shot 456.7 in the finals to make it past another seasoned shooter Lajja Gauswami, who shot 455.