Arjun Babuta and Anjum Moudgil (Punjab) putting up a consistent show bagged the mixed pairs title in the 61st National shooting championships at the National Games shooting range here on Friday.
The event, which was conducted for the first time in the championships and is to be introduced as a medal discipline in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, witnessed 20 teams battling it out in the preliminaries from which five were selected for the final shoot out.
Karnataka, represented by Tejas Krishna Prasad and Meghana M. Sajjanar, were head and shoulders above the others in this round as it qualified first with a score of 835.1 points and was followed by Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab in that order.
Despite bringing up the rear in the qualifiers, the Punjab duo proved to be in great form in the final even as the Karnataka pair, the team gold medallist, cracked and was the first to be eliminated with a tally of 346.0 after the fourth round of the sequence of seven. Next to leave was Akhil Sheoran and Aayushi Gupta with 392.2.
The Maharashtra pair of Shahu Mane and Pooja Ghatkar and the Rajasthan combine of Yash Vardhan and Apurvi Chandela ran each other close but behind Punjab through all these rounds, switching themselves to the second and third position alternatively before the bronze was decided. However, in the crucial sixth round, a less than average 9.9 in the second shot by Pooja gave enough leeway to Rajasthan which pushed Maharashtra to the third spot with 433.9.
Babuta and Moudgil who shot into the lead straight away through the six rounds completed with the competition at 497.6, a 1.5 point lead over Vardhan and Chandela to top the show. This was the third gold for Moudgil as she had earlier won the women’s 50m rifle individual and team gold medals. The Rajasthan pair finished with 496.4.
In the youth section, Maharashtra (Shahu Mane & Nupur Patil) stood first with 499.6 ahead of Himachal Pradesh (Surya Pratap Singh & Zeena Khitta, 496.7) and Bengal (Archisman Chakraborty & Mehuli Ghosh, 430.9). This after Rajasthan had toppled Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh in the team event. However in the final, the Rajasthan pair of Dikshant Gupta and Manini Kaushik were able to finish only fourth.
Shahu Mane picked up another gold medal in partnership with Prachi Gadkari helping Maharashtra to top the junior section with a tally of 493.9 points. Gujarat (Gohil Harshrajsinhji & Elavenil Valarivan) took the silver with 490.6 and Rajasthan (Divyansh Panwar & Vanshika Rathore) the bronze with 429.4. Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan had finished in that order in the team event.
