NE SPORTS BUREAU
NEW DELHI, FEB 11
Current world number one Elavenil Valarivan bettered compatriot Apurvi Chandela’s finals world record to win the women’s 10m air rifle competition in the third national selection trials here on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Divyansh Singh Panwar had also gone past the finals world record mark, previously held by a Chinese shooter, in the men’s 10m air rifle final.
Elavenil shot 253, while Tokyo Olympics quota holder Apurvi managed 252.9 in an ISSF World Cup here two years ago.
In the other events of the day, the Tokyo quota winners won their respective trials. Two-time Olympian Sanjeev Rajput continued his stellar run of form as he topped the qualification with a score of 1176 in the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions before positing a wire-to-wire finals victory with 462.2.
Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar, also a Tokyo quota winner, came in second with 458.1. He had also followed Sanjeev in second place in qualification with 1172.
Manu Bhaker, the present world number two in her event, won the third women’s 10m air pistol trials quite comfortably. She topped the qualification with a score of 584 and then won the finals with an effort of 243.7 after 24 shots.
The final winner of the day was Vijayveer Sidhu, who won the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol event. Vijayveer shot 35 in the finals to beat Bhavesh Shekhawat. Rajasthan’s Bhavesh shot 29 to finish behind the Punjab youngster.
