National Selection Trials: Himanshu, Sift, Esha register wins

New Delhi [India], June 27 : The Indian Army's Himanshu Talan was the toast of the day at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting (DKSSR) range on Monday, stunning a quality field to win the Men's 10m Air Rifle T6 trials, even as Sift Kaur Samra in the Women's 50m Rifle 3 Positions (3P) and Esha Singh in the Women's 25m Pistol, recorded yet another success in their ever-improving evolution as India international shooters.

The National Selection Trials 5 and 6 for Group A Rifle and Pistol shooters, currently underway at the DKSSR, assume greater importance given the Indian teams for the World Championships and the Asian Games are set to be selected right after.

Himanshu denied reigning Air Rifle world champion Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil, who has otherwise been shooting brilliantly to reach two finals in two days and finish fourth and second respectively.

The Army man finished with 252.9 after the 24-shot final, 0.9 ahead of the world champion. He did not shoot a single nine throughout and recorded four scores of 10.8, including his 24th shot and five scores of 10.7, in a champagne performance.

The other in form shooter Hriday Hazarika of Assam, finished third on the day to go with a second in the T5 on Monday. Hriday would be happy though that he topped qualification with a score of 632, a second successive day he has matched that score.

In the final before that, Punjab's Sift Kaur Samra looked a different league in the Women's 3P. She shot a 592 first in qualification to top it, which was a repeat of the T5 trial qualification performance on Sunday.

She won the 45-shot final, a huge four points ahead of second-placed Manini Kaushik of Rajasthan. Sift had opened up a huge gap over the field after the first 15 Kneeling shots itself and never looked back.

State-mate Anjum Moudgil was third, which along with her qualification score of 589 to finish second, will surely boost the confidence of the former world championship silver medallist.

The first final of the day was the Women's 25m Pistol T5 and most known names made it to the top eight. Esha of Telangana who topped qualification with a score of 587, was not the quickest off the blocks, but a late charge saw her and Maharashtra's Abhidnya Ashok Patil finish on the same score of 34 after 10-series of five rapid-fire shots each.

The ensuing shoot-off was a 3-1 result in favour of the Hyderabadi and that will boost her confidence as well considering the likes of Manu Bhaker (fifth) and Chinki Yadav (fourth) were also part of the finals field. Haryana's Vibhuti Bhatia finished third.

In the corresponding junior events, Punjab's Simranpreet Kaur Brar won the Women's 25m Pistol, Sakshi Sunil Padekar of NCC won the Women's 3P while West Bengal's Srinjoy Datta won the junior Men's 10m Air Rifle.