Elavenil Valarivan, Hriday Hazarika win 10m air rifle T1 trials

Reigning world number one Elavenil Valarivan and Assam's Hriday Hazarika on Saturday won the women's and men's 10m Air Rifle T1 national selection trials respectively at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting range.

Gujarat's Elavenil shot 628.3 after the 60-shot qualification round, to enter the final in fourth place. Rajasthan's Nisha Kanwar top-scored with 631.8 as she led a strong eight-woman field into the finals.

The world number one turned out too strong in the final, beating senior shooter and Olympian Ayonika Paul of the Railways comfortably. Elavenil finished with 251.7, two points ahead of second-placed Ayonika. Shriyanka Sadangi of Odisha finished third.

In the men's event, Assam's Hriday Hazarika delivered a start to finish performance in the finals, beating Madhya Pradesh's Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, a Tokyo 2020 quota holder, 253.2 to 251.5.

Punjab's Arjun Babuta, who had topped qualifying earlier with a score of 629.6, finished third with 230.0. Two-time Olympian Sanjeev Rajput, who had won the T1 50M Rifle 3 Position trials earlier, finished fourth.

The day also saw the commencement of the men's and women's T2 Skeet shooting trials. Zahara Deesawala and Aayush Rudraraju were leading the women's and men's qualification fields respectively. The finals are slated for Sunday.

Earlier this week, senior Men's 3-Positions (3P) rifle shooter and double Olympian Sanjeev Rajput showed good form by shooting competitively for the first time since the coronavirus induced lockdown, to win the 50m Rifle 3P T1 trials.

Young Abhay Singh Sekhon of Punjab, was also in the splendid nick, winning both the Men's and Junior Men's Skeet T1 trials at the shotgun ranges.

In Women's Skeet, Ganemat Sekhon outclassed a field of 13 to win while the Junior T1 Skeet trials, was bagged by Raiza Dhillon.

( With inputs from ANI )