Dominant Mehuli Ghosh wins Jr and Sr titles at trials

Mehuli Ghosh

Mehuli Ghosh continued her impressive run as she won both the senior and junior women's 10m air rifle title for the second day in a row at the National Shooting Trials (T7) here on Wednesday. Mehuli had won the same two events at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range on Tuesday in the sixth trial as well.

The diminutive teenager, who has seven international medals to her name over the last two years, clinched the title in a quality field comprising the world's top three shooters to win the senior final with a score of 251.9.

She then went on to win the junior final with a score of 252.7, just 0.2 off teammate and world number one Apurvi Chandela's finals world record score of 252.9. Madhya Pradesh's Shreya Agrawal lost her second final in two days to Mehuli, finishing behind her in the T6 seniors yesterday and then again the T7 juniors on Wednesday, where she finished with a score of 252.

Rio World Cup gold medallist Elavenil Valarivan came in second in the senior finals, shooting a score of 251.0. She had earlier topped the qualification round with a sublime 631.1. Apurvi and world number two Anjum Moudgil finished sixth and fourth in the senior finals respectively.

Zeena Khitta of Himachal Pradesh won the youth women's 10m air rifle trial, beating Atmika Gupta of Rajasthan 251.1 to 248.8. She had also won the T6 trial in the same category on Tuesday.

Khushi Saini of Punjab was the other standout performer in the event, making it to all three finals. Akhil Sheoran of the Railways, an ISSF World Cup gold medal winner last year, won the men's 50m rifle 3 positions (3P) trials with a final round score of 455.5. MP's Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar came second with 455.0 while Army's Satyendra Singh was third with 443.5.

Aishwary, however, won the junior men's trial in the same event. The highest qualification score in the men's 3P throughout the day was registered by the Indian Air Force's Deepak Kumar who topped the senior qualifications with a score of 1165.

Delhi's Arpit Goel won the men's 25m rapid fire pistol trials with a final score of 30. He overcame Maharashtra's Harshwardhan Yadav, who shot 28. Udhayveer Sidhu of Chandigarh came third but managed to win the junior trial with a score of 32. He overwhelmed Haryana's Anish Bhanwala who shot 29 to come second, while Adarsh Singh shot 23 to finish third.

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