In the last two years, Rajasthan’s Apurvi Chandela has offered glimpses of a champion shooter in the making with the long weapon; still in the junior ranks, she won her first senior National 10 metre air rifle title at New Delhi two years ago. More recently she won the Commonwealth Games gold medal at Glasgow.
On Wednesday, the 21-year-old Apurvi, who on occasions chooses her mother as a ‘rival’ to compete against at her Jaipur-home shooting range, won her second 10 metre air rifle title in the 58th National shooting championship at the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex.
Tallying 207.2 points Apurvi trounced Gujarat’s Lajja Gauswami (205.1) by 2.1 points. Rajasthan’s Hema K.C. with 184.4 won the bronze.
These three were followed by Maharashtra’s Gayatri Pawaskar, Haryana’s Anjum Moudgil, Maharashtra’s Anjali Bhagwat and Pooja Ghatkar. Punjab’s Nina Chandel absented herself from the final rounds.
Based in Mhow, the Army’s Satyendra Singh made the last day of the nationals memorable by winning the 50m rifle 3 position competition.
Satyendra who finished the 3 position event with 454.0 points, ahead of Rajput (445.8). The Army’s Imran Khan with 435.4 points took the bronze medal.
In the last official medal event Army’s Gurpreet Singh won the men’s 25m centre fire pistol gold medal. He aggregated 586 points and was ahead of teammate Pemba Tamang (584) and CISF’s Samaresh Jung (583).
Other result: Men: 25m centre-fire pistol junior: 1. Shivam Shukla (Delhi-568), 2. Pardeep (Army-566), 3. Rushiraj Barot (Gujarat-560).
