Shweta, Raj, Pemba bag top honours in Nat’l Shooting

ONGC’s Shweta Singh clinched the gold medal in women’s 10M Air Pistol even by shrugging off a spirited challenge from Haryana’s Yashaswani Singh Deswal to prevent Army from clean sweeping the top events on day seven of the 59th National Shooting Championship, here on Tuesday.

Malaika Goel of Punjab won the bronze in this event at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range. Meanwhile, Raj Chaudhary of the Army won the women’s 50M Rifle Prone champion event after she edged out India international Lajja Gauswami of Gujarat by virtue of having one inner 10 more. Tejaswini Sawant of Maharashtra came in third in the event.

Another army marksman and veteran India international shooter Pemba Tamang won the gold in the men’s 25M Rapid Fire Pistol event, in which colleague Neeraj Kumar bagged the silver and Wazeer Singh Rathee of the BSF won bronze.

Shweta continued her good form to first qualify for the finals in top spot with a score of 386 and then after fluctuating between second and third till the 17th shot, finally took the lead after the 18th and held on to win in the final two shots.

Yashaswani will get another opportunity to be crowned National Champion, but will not mind the day as she bagged four golds on the day across the women’s 10M Pistol junior and civilian disciplines and in both the individual and team sections.