Elavenil Valarivan (Gujarat), clearly unnerved by the presence of a host of seasoned campaigners, captured the women’s 10m air rifle gold at the 61st National shooting championships at the National Games shooting range here on Thursday.
The 18-year-old proved that her win in last month’s National selection trial in New Delhi was by no means a flash in the pan, as she took the title with a new National record to boot.
The young shooter was just a decimal point ahead of favourite Apurvi Chandela (Rajasthan) prior to last shot but held her nerve to finally clinch the top position with 250.6 points. Chandela, the 2014 Commonwealth Games gold medallist in Glasgow, was second with 250.4 while Mehuli Ghosh (Bengal), quota place winner for the upcoming Youth Olympics, was in third with 228.7.
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The event which saw as many as 342 shooters going through the grind in the preliminary round, saw Apruvi leading the fray with 419.3 points, ahead of Ayonika Paul (Railways, 419.0), Mehuli (418.9), Pooja Ghatkar (Maharashtra, 418.7), Anjum Moudgil (Punjab, 418.6), Elavenil (417.7), Zeena Khitta (Himachal Pradesh, 417.6) and Maduri Dipak Parmar (417.7) for the final.
Elavenil who had taken the lead after the fifth of the nine rounds, displayed her consistency and grit in good measure as she stayed on the top even as Mehuli was forced out to settle for the third spot. However, Apurvi did come breathing down the neck of her young rival in the closing stages of the contest, cutting down the Gujarat girl’s lead to just a decimal point, with only one shot remaining. But, Elavenil was not to be stopped as she came up with a hit of 10.5 compared to Apruvi’s 10.4 to eventually win the title by a .2 margin. The old benchmark of 249.7 was set by Pooja Ghatkar in Brisbane early this year.
In the junior women’s competition, held later, Elavenil was pushed to the second spot by Mehuli Ghosh, who won with a score of 249.4. Elavenil returned with a total of 249.2 while Zeena Khitta was third with 224.3.
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In the team event for women for the same discipline, Gujarat took the gold medal with a total of 1244.3 ahead of Maharashtra (1244.0) and Bengal (1243.0).