Shooting C'ship: Jitu Rai claims 10 m pistol gold with new mark

Jitu Rai

Pune: Incheon Asian Games gold medallist Jitu Rai broke his own record to claim the 10m pistol title for men in the 58th National Shooting Championship at the Balewadi shooting range here yesterday.


Jitu Rai

The Army shooter, who has been consistent in leading the charts of different events in the nationals, scored 202.3 to claim the gold. He broke his own national mark of 199.4 which he had set in the Munich World Cup earlier this year.

Shahzar Rizvi (Air Force) won the silver with 198.8 while P N Prakash (Karnataka), who tallied 176.0, won the bronze. It was double delight for Jitu as his team from Army Marksmanship Unit swept the team competition as well. Jitu along with Gurpreet Singh and Sukhwinder Singh shot a combined total of 1725. The Silver went to Punjab with 1712 while the Railways bagged 3rd place with 1708.

In the final of the women's 25m sports pistol, Rahi Sarnobat of Maharashtra beat Surabhi Pathak (Madhya Pradesh) to win the gold while Anisa Sayyed (Haryana) got the better of Shreya Gawande (Maharashtra) to claim the bronze. In the semi-finals Rahi shot 17 hits in the five series to move into the gold medal match while Surabhi Pathak and Anisa Sayeed were tied with 15 hits apiece.

In the tiebreaker Pathak edged out Anisa 3-2 to move into the Gold medal match. Rahi bounced back from a 0 in the first series and outscored Pathak in the next four to clinch the gold 8-4, while Anisa took on Shreya Gawande for the bronze medal. Rahi had a brilliant day today as she also won the team Gold for the category representing her state, Maharashtra.

She along with Shreya Gawande and Shradha Nalamwar shot a total of 1704. Haryana finished second with a total of 1694 while the ONGC team settled for the Bronze with a total of 1687. The qualifying rounds of the men's 50m prone rifle event started today and will continue till tonight. The finals would be held later on the same day.