Shooting: Sanjeev Rajput, Elavenil Valarivan dominate selection trials

New Delhi, February 12, 2021

Two-time Olympian Sanjeev Rajput gave another dominating performance as he won the 50 M Rifle 3-Positions (3P) event with ease at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting range in New Delhi on Friday.

Tokyo Olympic quota holder Sanjeev Rajput has been in tremendous form this year, winning three of the four 50M Rifle 3 Positions T4 national selection trials, while making it to all the finals.

Today, Sanjeev shot his best qualifying score of the four trials, a top-class 1,182 to advance to the eight-man final in pole position

Madhya Pradesh’s Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, who shot an equally impressive 1,181 was second.

Aishwary also has one of the 15 Tokyo 2020 quotas won by Indian shooters.

Sanjeev reigned supreme in the finals, too, shooting yet another season high score of 463.1 to leave second-finishing Niraj Kumar way behind with 459.6.

In the Women’s section, world number 1 and 10M Air Rifle exponent Elavenil was in great form.

After going past the finals world record in the T3 event yesterday, she won the T4 trials as well with a final round score of 251.6.

She topped the qualification round, this time with a score of 632.1, just 1.9 off the world record mark.

Yashaswini Deswal was another Tokyo 2020 quota holder to register a victory on the day.

She won the Women’s 10M Air Pistol T4 trials, with an effort of 242.9 in the final. Seasoned campaigned Shweta Singh of ONGC came second with 240.6. Manu Bhaker, the winner of the T3 trials in the event, reached yet another final, but finished seventh.

In the 25M Rapid Fire Pistol T4 event, Arpit Goel of Delhi won the final shoot-out with a score of 30. Adarsh Singh was second with 29, while Vijayveer Sidhu was third with 25 hits.

NNN