It was like old times for Elizabeth Susan Koshy. The 25-year-old Kerala girl gained plenty of confidence by winning the women’s rifle 3-position gold, in a top class field, in the 12th Sardar Sajjan Singh Sethi Masters shooting championship at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Wednesday.
With the final staged at the final hall, instead of the 50-metre range, the atmosphere added to the aspirations of Elizabeth who remembered that she had won the gold in 2017.
“Honestly I was not thinking about winning. In the last year and a half I have been struggling with my shooting. Coach Stanislav Lapidus was the backbone to my shooting. After he left Indian shooting, I lacked the guidance.
“Of course, I have worked with many other coaches. I was not getting the feel in my shooting. However, I told myself that it would not be an excuse,” said Elizabeth, after receiving a congratulatory hug and peck from her mother Sosa.
After qualifying in the sixth place, with a modest score of 1161, Elizabeth was in a different zone in the final. She was in the third place after 15 shots in kneeling with 152.1, on par with Anjali Bhagwat, and 1.6 point behind leader Lajja Gauswami.
After 15 more shots in prone, Elizabeth was firmly in the lead ahead of Tejaswini Sawant, Anjum Moudgil and Lajja. Elizabeth enhanced the lead in the standing position to triumph with a 4.5 point margin over Tejaswini, while K.C. Hema sneaked to the bronze, after having qualified in the eighth place. “Hard work has paid. I guess, I still have the national record in final. Today, I did not have the feel, but forgot about everything else and focused on my technique. The shots went very well. I think, God was pulling the trigger,” said Elizabeth with a smile.
The results: Men: 25m standard pistol: 1. Gurpreet Singh 577, 2. Vijayveer Sidhu 576, 3. Adarsh Singh 574. Juniors: 1. Vijayveer 576, 2. Adarsh 574, 3. Anish Bhanwala 573.
50m rifle prone: 1. Tarun Yadav 622.6, 2. Sanjeev Rajput 619.6, 3. Sateyndra Singh 618.2. Juniors: 1. Abid Ali Khan 620.5, 2. Gohil Harsharjsinhji 617.4, 3. Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar 614.7.
Women: 50m rifle 3-position: 1. Elizabeth Susan Koshy 460.1 (1161), 2. Tejaswini Sawant 455.6 (1161), 3. K.C. Hema 444.5 (1158). Juniors: 1. Ayushi Podder 444.9 (1147), 2. Prasiddhi 444.4 (1148), 3. Shirin Godara 432.3 (1135).
Mixed air pistol: 1. Air India (Annu Raj Singh, Deepak Sharma) 17 (385, 572), 2. ONGC (Shweta Singh, Amanpreet Singh) 5 (386, 580), 3. Railways (Ruchita Vinerkar, Hemendra Singh) 17 (384, 568) .
