Albha Oberoi beat Harveen Srao by 3.5 points for the gold in women’s 10m air pistol in the 13th Kumar Surendra Singh memorial shooting championship at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Saturday.
The 21-year-old Albha qualified in the top position with 379, and handled the final with competence to beat a strong field.
Harveen, who was returning to competition after a year and a half, took a slender lead after eight and ten shots.
Albha took a 0.4 point lead after 12 shots and built on it meticulously.
She dismissed the fact that two top shooters Sushma Singh and Anisa Sayyed had missed the final, by pointing at the fact that the top-six were fighting for the medals.
Heavy rain had thrown the programme out of gear, but the proceedings in the indoor range were not affected.
At the 50-metre range, the final of the women’s 3-position event had to be postponed to Sunday, as rain played havoc with the targets kept open to the elements.
In men’s 25-metre standard pistol, Olympic silver medallist Vijay Kumar won the gold with a total of 573, four points ahead of Gurpreet Singh who had beaten him to the gold in rapid fire pistol event on Thursday.
The hero of the Melbourne Commonwealth Games, Samaresh Jung missed a medal by one point to Wazeen Singh Rathee.
The results: Men: 25m standard pistol: 1. Vijay Kumar 573; 2. Gurpreet Singh 569; 3. Wazeer Singh Rathee 566. Juniors: 1. Ajitesh Kaushal 555; 2. Manpreet Singh 547; 3. Sunil Gurung 542.
Women: 10m air rifle: 1. Albha Oberoi 200.7 (379); 2. Harveen Srao 197.2 (376); 3. Malaika Goel 177.0 (376).
Juniors: 1. Malaika Goel 376; 2. P. Shri Nivetha 372; 3. Aditi Sewak 371. Youth: 1. Malaika Goel 376; 2. Nayani Bhardwaj 365; 3. Gauri 365.
