Tilottama, Niraj win 50m 3 positions; Rajkanwar tops 25m rapid fire pistol

New Delhi, Jan 20 (PTI) National champion Tilottama Sen continued her fine form in 50m rifle 3 positions as she won the national selection trials T1 for Group A at the Karni Singh Shooting Range while Niraj Kumar of Navy claimed the men’s event on Tuesday.

In the 25m rapid fire pistol T1, Rajkanwar Singh Sandhu secured the top spot.

The 50m 3P finals was played in the new ISSF format, and saw Tilottama who recently won 11 medals in the 68th National Shooting Championship, finish on the top ahead of Ashi Chouskey with a slender lead of 0.6.

The Karnataka shooter finished with a score of 360.1 while Ashi ended with a score of 359.5. Manini Kaushik of Rajasthan finished in third place with a final score of 347.5.

Tilottama and Ashi had earlier qualified for the finals in top two spots with scores of 594 and 592 respectively.

Surabhi Bharadwaj Rapole of Railways (589, 311.7 in finals), Vidarsa K. inod of Kerala (588, 336.3 in finals), Ayushi Podder of Railways (588, 322.6 in finals), Anjum Moudgil of Punjab (587, 204.7 in finals) and Mansi Kathait of Railways (587, 299.2 in finals) completed the finals lineup.

Niraj Kumar dominates men's field ======================== Navy's Niraj Kumar produced a consistent performance throughout the finals, securing top spot with a final score of 360.5 which was 3.6 more than Adriyan Karmakar of West Bengal, who finished with a score of 356.9.

National champion Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar finished third with a score of 346.7.

Aishwary, representing Madhya Pradesh, had qualified for the finals with a score of 595, while Ganga Singh of Army qualified second with a score of 593.

Swapnil Kusale of Railways (592), Rudrankksh B. Patil of Maharashtra (592), Chain Singh of Army (590) and Kiran Ankush Jadhav of Navy (588) completed the finals lineup.

Sandhu wins 25m rapid fire pistol T1 ========================== The 25m rapid fire pistol finals, which was also played in the new ISSF format, with eight shooters qualifying for the finals instead of six, saw Rajkanwar Singh Sandhu of Punjab securing the top spot.

The 23-year-old shot 29 in the finals, two more than Vijayveer Sidhu who finished with 27. Mandeep Singh of Haryana took the third spot with a score of 20 after surviving a shoot off against National Champion Suraj Sharma who finished with a score of 18.

Udayveer Sidhu (14), Neeraj Kumar (11), Omkar Singh (7) and Ankur Goel were the other finalists. PTI AH AH BS BS