New Delhi, Dec 4 Haryana's Manu Bhaker was crowned Women's 10M Air Pistol National champion for the second successive edition, shooting 241.6 in the final of the ongoing 64th National Shooting Championship at the Karni Singh Shooting Range on Saturday.
Manu has now won three of the last four Nationals in the event, losing it briefly to Esha Singh in the 62nd Nationals. Esha did win bronze in the event behind second placed Shri Nivetha of Tamil Nadu, to go with both the Junior and Youth Women gold medals, but Manu could not be dislodged in the plum event of the day.
Manu had made it to the eight-woman final with a fifth-place finish in qualifying and a score of 576. Esha had topped the qualifiers with a solid 582. In the final though, Manu was in her elements from get go, leading from start to finish to leave Nivetha 1.7 points behind after the allotted 24-shots. Esha bowed out third with 215.4
In the Junior final later, it was Esha who did the star turn to register a wire-to-wire finish with her 240.7, more than 2.8 ahead of second finishing Devanshi Dhama of UP. Haryana's Tejaswani won bronze.
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