Punjab's Abhinav Bindra, after topping the qualifier, struck gold with steady shooting in the men's 10m air rifle final at the 55th National shooting championships here on Friday.
The Olympic champion led the eight finalists with 596 in the morning qualifying round and returned in the evening to win the final by totalling 700.2.
Gagan Narang (Air India), placed alongside him on the strength of a 595 qualifying score, gained second slot with a total 696.6. Bindra set the tone in the final with two 10.8 scores in the first two attempts, produced 10.6 in the fifth and showed his form and consistency on the 10th and final shot (10.7) for an aggregate of 104.2 points. Bindra, given a rousing ovation during pre-event introduction, left the arena quickly after being crowned champion to catch a flight to Germany.
Gagan's best was 10.7 in the ninth and got eight 10-plus scores. Navy's P T Raghunath hit bulls-eye in all 10 shots, rising from sixth (591) in the qualifiers to a close fourth behind Chain Singh.
Later, before a frenzied audience at the home range, Narang won a shootout with C. Rekha to be crowned ‘Champion of Champions' in air rifle. Eight shooters (men and women) comprised the field and the first Indian to win an Olympic quota for London 2012 showed steely nerves to finish 0.3 points ahead of Rekha in the three-shot tie-breaker (30.6 against 30.3 respectively).
Even as the eight elite air rifle shooters lined up for the showpiece event, the range was in complete darkness for a few minutes due to power failure.
Rajkumari Rathore (MP) won the women's 50m prone event.
The results: Men's 10m air rifle : 1. Abhinav Bindra (Pun) (596, 104.2) 700.2; 2. Gagan Narang (Air India) (595, 101.6 ) 696.6; 3. Chain Singh (Army) (594, 101.7) 695.7; 4. P T Raghunath (Navy) (591, 103.4) 695.4; 5. Sanjeev Rajput (Navy) (593, 101.3) 694.3; 6. Navnath Fartade (Mah) (592, 100.8) 692.8; 7. Ashish Gautam (Del) (592, 96.8) 688.8; 8. Ashok Karande (Mah) (590, 98.3) 688.3.
