Anjali Bhagwat showed that she could shoot from memory and bag the gold, even as Imran Hassan Khan beat Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra and double World record-holder Gagan Narang to the gold in air rifle, in the National shooting championship at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Saturday.
On an eventful day, when Vijay Kumar proved his class twice over in winning his sixth National title in rapid fire pistol, despite the new format nullifying his strong qualification lead, Anjali was just too good as she beat the young Lajja Gauswami by 2.6 points for the gold.
Shooting in a competition for the first time after the Beijing Olympics, and with very little training, Anjali was a class act as she put together a total of 99.7 in the final, after having started with 576, the same as Lajja, and one point behind leader Raj Kumari Rathore.
Lajja managed to snatch the lead from Anjali twice after the latter had shot ahead of Raj Kumari with the first two shots of 10.3 and 10.8 in the final. However, at the crunch, Anjali shot 10.4 on the last two shots, even as Lajja reeled from the after effects of a 7.1 seventh shot.
Anjali had shot 190 in standing during qualification, but Lajja who had shot 195, could not match her in the climax when the target had to be lit with special lights as the 50-metre final was held after the sun had set.
World champion in prone, Tejaswini Sawant bagged the bronze while leader Raj Kumari, crowned National champion in prone earlier, slipped following shots on 7s and 8s.
Imran Hassan Khan had a two-point lead over Gagan Narang and Satyendra Singh in the air rifle following a score of 596. He was confident with a total of 100.8, even as Gagan won the tie-shoot against Satyendra after the two tied at 695.5.
Bindra disappoints
Abhinav Bindra with a qualification score of 592 was never in the race, and lost the shoot-off for the fifth spot to Sanjeev Rajput, after the two returned the same total of 693.0. The young Rakesh Manpat shot the best in the final with a 103.5 and was placed fourth.
In rapid fire, Vijay Kumar led with 576, five points ahead of Pemba Tamang, even as former champion Jaspal Rana was third in qualification with a 570. In the final, in which the six shooters had four series, Jaspal was the first to be eliminated.
C. K. Chaudhary and Devinder Singh followed Jaspal, as the final was simplified by ISSF with one point for any score of 9.7 and above.
Gurpreet Singh proved strong in the end as he pipped Pemba Tamang for the silver, while Vijay Kumar won the gold literally unchallenged.
The results:
Men: Air rifle: 1. Imran Hassan Khan 696.8 (596); 2. Gagan Narang 695.5 (10.3) 594; 3. Satyendra Singh 695.5 (9.3) 594. Team: 1. Army 1781; 2. Navy 1766; 3. Karnataka 1762. Juniors: 1. Rakesh Manpat 590; 2. Manjeet Singh 590; Ravi Kumar 587. Team: 1. Army 1746; 2. Delhi 1729; 3. Madhya Pradesh 1729. Youth: 1. Sagar Ukhare 582; 2. Prathamesh Songurkar 582; 3. Subhankar Pramanick 579. Team: 1. Maharashtra 1734; 2. Rajasthan 1699; 3. Uttar Pradesh 1691. Rapid fire pistol: 1. Vijay Kumar 32 (576); 2. Gurpreet Singh 26 (568); 3. Pemba Tamang 20 (571). Team: 1. Army 1715; 2. Navy 1683; 3. BSF 1641. Juniors: 1. Vikrant Ghaisas 532; 2. Mukul Singh 517; 3. Chander Sekar Maity 516. Team: 1. Army 1528; 2. Maharashtra 1358. Women: Rifle 3-position: 1. Anjali Bhagwat 675.7 (576); 2. Lajja Gauswami 673.1 (576); 3. Tejaswini Sawant 670.4 (573). Team: 1. Maharashtra 104; 2. Army 1691; 3. NCC 1690. Juniors: 1. Tejaswini Muley 571; 2. Priyal Keni 560; 3. Rekha Chalichemala 559. Team: 1. NCC 1635; 2. Madhya Pradesh 1605.
