Former World and Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra beat Olympian Sanjeev Rajput for the first place in air rifle on successive days in the ongoing National shooting trials at Tughlakabad.
Abhinav shot 208.5 and 208.4 in the finals on Wednesday and Thursday respectively. He had qualified with a high of 629.1 on the first day, and the score had dipped to 624.1 the second time.
London Games bronze medallist Gagan Narang shot 614.9 and 616.8 on the two days which saw him miss the final both times.
Olympic silver medallist Vijay Kumar arrested an alarming slide in fortunes on Thursday, to take first place ahead of Pemba Tamang, beating him 3-1 in the shoot-off after the two had tied on 31.
Vijay had placed fourth in the first trial on Wednesday behind Harpreet Singh and Gurpreet Singh. Even in the qualification phase, Vijay's score went up to 582 as against 578 the previous day.
In free pistol, Monu Tomar pipped the seasoned Samaresh Jung by 0.5 points, in the second trial. Om Prakash who had topped the first trial ended up third the second time.
With the Commonwealth Games, World Championship and the Asian Games slated ahead in the season, the scores in the trials may play a key role in deciding the composition of the National squad, even though some of the leading shooters have the chance to redeem themselves in international competition.
The results: Men: Air rifle-II: 1. Abhinav Bindra 208.4 (624.1); 2. Sanjeev Rajput 207.9 (618.0); 3. Ashok Chvanke 185.2 (617.8).
Air rifle-I: 1. Abhinav Bindra 208.5 (629.1); 2. Sanjeev Rajput 206.6 (621.9); 3. Imran Hassan Khan 183.7 (618.3).
Rapid fire pistol-II: 1. Vijay Kumar 31(3) 582; 2. Pemba Tamang 31(1) 574; 3. Gurpreet Singh 25 (574).
Rapid fire pistol-I: 1. Harpreet Singh 32 (573); 2. Gurpreet Singh 30 (573); 3. Vijay Kumar 25 (578).
Free pistol-II: 1. Monu Tomar 191.4 (559); 2. Samaresh Jung 189.9 (550); 3. Om Prakash 169.5 (553).
Free pistol-I: 1. Om Prakash 192.1 (558); 2. Gurpal Singh 188.5 (556); 3. Jitu Rai 169.2 (564).
