Rakesh, Mampi & Anirudh win golds in National shooting c'ship

New Delhi: Rakesh Manpat clinched the 50 meter Rifle Prone Gold, Mampi Das won the Gold in 10m Air Rifle event, while Anirudh Singh claimed the Gold of Trap Shooting on a day when big names came tumbling down at the 57th National shooting championship here today.

In men's 50m Prone Rifle event, Rakesh Manpat of Karnataka beat Olympians like Gagan Narang and Joydeep Karmakar at the Dr. Karni Singh Range here.

Rakesh scored 207.9 in the finals to win Gold, Joydeep Karmakar of Railways could only manage 206.1 to won Silver, while Olympic medallist Gagan Narang had to satisfied with Bronze after scoring 183.6 score and another Olympian Sanjeev Rajput of Navy was on the fourth place with 162.2.

While Joydeep was on top in the qualification round with 619.1, Sanjeev Scored 617.1, Gagan shot 616.6 and Rakesh was on sixth place with 615.9 in the qualification round.

Army team of Sushil Ghale, Pankaj and Hariom won Gold medal of 50m Rifle Prone with a score of 1844.3, while Uttar Pradesh team of Ishan Goel, Anubhav and Ajeet Kumar claimed Silver with 1836.6 points and Railway team consisting of Jaydeep, Partha Ghash and Pankaj bagged the Bronze with a score of 1830.7.

Ishan Goel of Uttar Pradesh won Gold in 50m Rifle Prone Junior event with 614.8 score, Navdeep Singh Rathore (614.1) of Madhya Pradesh clinched Silver and UP Shooter Daniyal Raza Zaidi (611.7) claimed Bronze.

In the Finals of 10m Air Rifle event, Mampi dramatically defeated all the toppers of the qualification round.

Mampi of West Bengal shot 208.2 and bagged the Gold, while Maharashtra's Ghatkar Poooja Pandharinath succeeded to maintain her second position in the finals by shooting 205.9 to win silver and Rajasthan's Apurvi Chandela remained 3rd in the final with 183.9 score to bag the Bronze medal.

Olympian Anjali Bhagwat was fourth in the finals as well as in the qualification. She scored 174 and 414.7. while Railway's Ayonika Paul topped the qualification round with 415.9, but slipped to sixth position in the finals.

Ghatkat Pooja and Apurvi scored 415.7 and 415.2 in the qualification round.

In the junior Trap shooting, Olympic silver-medallist Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore's teenaged son Manavaditya clinched double golds.The 14-year-old Manavaditya, who had bagged the bronze in Asian Championship last October, won the title with a score of 111/125 in individual event.

Sushil Sharan and Mohd Sheesh came up with identical scores of 110 but the former was awarded with the silver and the latter had to settle for the bronze medal.

Manavaditya also won a team gold in trap shooting along with teammates Abhay Singh Rathore and Adhiraj Singh Rathore -- the trio had a combined score of 318. Uttar Pradesh (288) and Delhi (279) teams came second and third.

Apurvi Chandela also clinched the 10m Junior women's Air Rifle event's Gold with 415.2 score, Tamilnadu's S Parveena won Silver on 414.3 and Shalini Chahar of Uttar Pradesh claimed Bronze with 413.4 points.

Anirudh Singh of Uttar Pradesh became the new Champion in men's trap shooting by defeating Kynan Chenai of Andhra Pradesh in the finals.

Anirudh shot 13/15 Clays to win Gold against Silver medallist Kynan Chenai's score of 11/15.

It was a tough fight for the Bronze medal between Olympian Manavjit Singh Sandhu of Punjab and Prithviraj Tondaiman of Tamil Nadu.

Both the finalist came up with identical shots of 12/15 and had to go for a tie-shot. Finally Prithviraj shot 3 clays to claim Bronze and Manavjit could shot only 2 and was left on the fourth place.

In the Semifinals, Kynan was on top with a wonderful score of 15/15. Anirudh, Prithviraj, Manavjit, Zoravar Singh and Mansher Singh scored 14, 13, 12, 11 and 9 points.

In the qualification round Manavjit was top with 121 score, while Kynan Chenai shot 120, Prithviraj and Zoravar scored matching 119, Mansher shot 118 and Anirudh was on 6th place with 117 score in the qualifications.

In team event of Clay Pigeon Trap Shooting, Andhra Pradesh team of Kynan Chenai, Darius Chenai and Gautam Gianchandani won Gold with 339 score, Anirurudh Singh, Anwer Sultan and Nayab Khan of Uttar Pradesh bagged Silver with a team score of 339 and Tamilnadu's team of Prithviraj, Bakthavatchalam and Venkatraman scored 329 to win Bronze.