Olympic silver medallist Vijay Kumar and air pistol ace Heena Sidhu overwhelmed a competitive field in the 10th Sardar Sajjan Singh Sethi Masters shooting championship at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, here on Monday.
While Vijay Kumar won the rapid fire pistol gold with an unbeatable total of 31 following a perfect five in the climax, Heena Sidhu beat Albha Oberoi by 2.2 points.
In a lively contest at the 25-metre range, in which the seasoned Pemba Tamang failed to make the rapid fire pistol final by two points, Vijay Kumar started strongly and strengthened his stranglehold as the final progressed over eight series of five shots in the exacting 4-second series.
Heena Sidhu qualified with a score of 387, seven points ahead of Shreya Gawande and 10 ahead of Albha Oberoi who eventually took the bronze and silver medals respectively.
It was to the credit of Albha that she bridged the gap to 0.6 point at one stage and 0.8 point after 18 shots. However, Heena nonchalantly shot 10.5 and 10.0 on the last two shots to enhance the margin by a further 1.4 points.
In women’s 50-metre rifle prone event, Lajja Gauswami edged out the air rifle gold medallist Anjum Moudgil, 30-26 on better number of inner-10s, after the two tied on 588.
The results:
Men: 25m rapid fire pistol: 1. Vijay Kumar 31 (578); 2. Gurpreet Singh 27 (570); 3. Harpreet Singh 18 (576).
Women: 10m air pistol: 1. Heena Sidhu 200.8 (387); 2. Albha Oberoi 198.6 (377); 3. Shreya Gawande 174.1 (380).
Juniors: 1. Shreya Gawande 380; 2. Ruchi Singh 375; 3. Prerna Gupta 373.
Youth: 1. Gauri 375; 2. Nayani Bhardwaj 370; 3. Disha Langan 361.
50m rifle prone: 1. Lajja Gauswami 588 (30x); 2. Anjum Moudgil 588 (26x); 3. Meena Kumari 587.
Juniors: 1. Anjum Moudgil 588; 2. Elizabeth Susan Koshy 583; 3. W Sandhya 581.
