Shiva Narwal, Neha win air pistol national trials

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh) [India], April 18 : Haryana teenager Shiva Narwal clinched the men's 10m air pistol T3 trial at the M.P. State Shooting Academy Range in Bhopal, even as Uttar Pradesh's Neha emerged triumphant in the women's event on the penultimate day of the National Selection Trials for Group A Rifle and Pistol shooters.

Shiva outgunned Punjab's Arjun Singh Cheema 17-7 in the gold medal match while Neha overcame Rhythm Sangwan 17-9 in the women's title decider.

Shiva also topped the qualification round by posting a score of 582. In the ranking round, he topped yet again with 252.9 after 25 shots. Arjun was second with 252.4 and eventually settled for the same overall spot.

Neha took a tougher route to her victory. She qualified eighth with a score of 573. In fact, the top three were the bottom three in qualifying with Haryana's Rhythm shooting 573 for seventh place and state-mate Yashaswini Deswal posting a 574 to claim the sixth qualifying spot. Rhythm then topped the ranking round with a 251.6, way ahead of Neha who followed her to the gold medal match with a 248.3 as Yashaswini came third with 246.9. In the decider, however, Neha managed to turn the tables on Rhythm to come out on top.

Among the juniors, Urva Chaudhary scripted yet another UP win over Haryana taking the junior women's 10m air pistol T3 trial with a 16-10 win against Lakshita. The junior men's final was a nerve-wracking one with Rajasthan's Amit Sharma putting it across yet another Haryana shooter Samrat Rana 17-15.

In New Delhi's Dr Karni Singh Shooting range, the venue of the T3 Shotgun trials, Jakarta Asiad silver medallist Lakshay Sheoran was leading the men's Trap field after day one of qualification, ending with two perfect rounds of 25 for a score of 74. Bakhtyaruddin Malek trailed him on countback but had the same score. Aadya Tripathi also shot the same score in the women's trap to lead that field ahead of Msh Keer (72) and Pragati Dubey (72).