New Delhi, Dec 23 Uttar Pradesh’s pistol ace Saurabh Chaudhary, former world number one and Asian Games champion, won the men’s 10m air pistol T1 national selection trials, posting a score of 244.5 in the final here at the Karni Singh Shooting range on Saturday.
Saurabh, one of India’s most decorated pistol shooters left behind the Army’s qualification topper Ravinder Singh behind by a margin of 0.1 in the eight-man final to be back in the winner's circle after a while. In the women’s air pistol T1, Suruchi led a Haryana clean sweep, finishing ahead of two Olympians, Yashaswini Deswal and Manu Bhaker respectively.
Ravinder was the top marksman in the qualifiers, finishing with a score of 586. His mate Sagar Dangi was second with 585, while Saurabh qualified seventh with a modest 581. However, Saurabh’s experience of finals probably came through, as despite being third at the end of 18-shots of the 24-shot final, he held his nerve to finish strong and clinch the deal in the end. Nostalgia was evident all around the range on the day.
In the women’s event, Suruchi however, did convert her top qualification position into a win. She posted 579 in the first 60-shot round to finish ahead of Manu on inner 10s. Then in the final, she took the lead after 10-shots and held on to win admirably. Her score of 240.4 was 0.4 ahead of Yashaswini in the end. Manu bowed out third after the 22nd shot with a tally of 219.3.
Sunday will be the final day of the trials and will see the men’s and women’s 10m air pistol T2 matches being conducted.
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