Tilottama Sen continues fine form at national shooting trials

Tilottama Sen won the women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions at the National Selection Trials in Delhi, while Niraj Kumar topped the men’s event. Rajkanwar Singh Sandhu secured the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol title as India’s top shooters impressed

Hyderabad: National champion Tilottama Sen continued her fine form in the 50m Rifle 3 Positions as she won National Selection Trials T1 for Group A at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range in Delhi on Tuesday, while Niraj Kumar of Navy won the men’s event. In the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol T1, Rajkanwar Singh Sandhu secured the top spot.

The 50m 3P finals, played in the new ISSF format, saw Tilottama, who recently won 11 medals in the 68th National Shooting Championship, finish on top ahead of Ashi Chouskey with a slender lead of 0.6. The Karnataka shooter finished with a score of 360.1, while Ashi scored 359.5. Manini Kaushik of Rajasthan finished third with 347.5.

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Tilottama and Ashi had earlier qualified for the finals in the top two spots with scores of 594 and 592 respectively. Surabhi Bharadwaj Rapole of Railways (589, 311.7 in finals), Vidarsa K Vinod of Kerala (588, 336.3 in finals), Ayushi Podder of Railways (588, 322.6 in finals), Anjum Moudgil of Punjab (587, 204.7 in finals) and Mansi Kathait of Railways (587, 299.2 in finals) completed the finals lineup.

Navy’s Niraj Kumar produced a consistent performance throughout the finals, securing top spot with 360.5, which was 3.6 more than Adriyan Karmakar of West Bengal, who finished with 356.9. National champion Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar finished third with 346.7.

Aishwary, representing Madhya Pradesh, had qualified for the finals with 595, while Ganga Singh of Army qualified second with 593. Swapnil Kusale of Railways (592), Rudrankksh B Patil of Maharashtra (592), Chain Singh of Army (590) and Kiran Ankush Jadhav of Navy (588) completed the finals lineup.

The 25m Rapid Fire Pistol finals, also played in the new ISSF format with eight shooters qualifying instead of six, saw Rajkanwar Singh Sandhu of Punjab secure the top spot.

The 23-year-old shot 29 in the finals, two more than Vijayveer Sidhu, who finished with 27. Mandeep Singh of Haryana took third place with 20 after surviving a shoot-off against national champion Suraj Sharma, who finished with 18. Udayveer Sidhu (14), Neeraj Kumar (11), Omkar Singh (7) and Ankur Goel were the other finalists.