Himanshu Talan, Sift Kaur Samra, Esha Singh register wins in shooting trials

NEW DELHI: Himanshu Talan of Indian Army stunned a quality field to win the sixth (T6) men's 10m air rifle national selection trials at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range, here on Monday.

Sift Kaur Samra in the women's 50m rifle 3 positions (3P) and Esha Singh in the women's 25m pistol also emerged winners in their respective events.

The national selection trials 5 and 6 for Group A rifle and pistol shooters, currently underway at the DKSSR, assume greater significance as the Indian teams for the World Championships and the Asian Games are set to be selected right after the ongoing event.

Himanshu denied reigning air rifle world champion Rudrankksh Patil, who had otherwise been shooting brilliantly to reach two finals in two days and finished fourth and second respectively. The Army man finished with a total of 252.9 after the 24-shot final, 0.9 ahead of the world champion. He did not shoot a single nine throughout and recorded four scores of 10.8, including his 24th shot, and five scores of 10.7.

The other form shooter Hriday Hazarika of Assam, finished third on the day to go with a second in the T5 on Monday. Hriday would be happy though that he topped qualification with a score of 632, a second successive day he has matched that score.

Meanwhile, Punjab's Sift Kaur Samra looked a different league in the women's 3P. She shot a 592 first in qualification to top it, which was a repeat of the T5 trial qualification performance on Sunday. Then she won the 45-shot final, a huge four points ahead of second placed Manini Kaushik of Rajasthan.

Sift had opened up a huge gap over the field after the first 15 kneeling shots itself and never looked back. State-mate Anjum Moudgil was third, which along with her qualification score of 589 to finish second, will surely boost the confidence of the former world championship silver medallist.

The first final of the day was the Women’s 25m Pistol T5 and most known names made it to the top eight. Esha of Telangana who topped qualification with a score of 587, was not the quickest off the blocks. IANS

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