London Games silver medallist Vijay Kumar shot 589 out of 600 in the centrefire pistol event to top the list in the second trials at the Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Thursday.
A bronze medallist in centrefire pistol in the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games, Vijay shot the best score of 297 in the rapid-fire stage among the 19 shooters.
He had shot 292 in the precision stage earlier, to beat the ‘best sportsman’ of the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games Samaresh Jung by one point.
Samaresh, who had topped the first trial along with C.K. Chaudhary, shot 295 in precision and 293 in rapid-fire.
Pemba Tamang (585), Omkar Singh (582), C.K. Chaudhary (582), Gurpreet Singh (581), Harpreet Singh (580), Vivek Singh (578) and Mahendar Singh (578) followed in that order.
In junior men’s sports pistol, Ajitesh Kaushal topped the small field for the second time with a score of 571. The others at the top were Vishwajeet Singh (566), Sunil Gurung (562) and Samarjit Singh (552).
With the trials over, the Indian rifle and pistol teams for the first two World Cups to be held in Changwon and Fort Benning are expected to be announced shortly by the National Rifle Association of India.
