A merry band of young marksmen from Haryana created all the buzz at the Balewadi Sports Complex shooting range on Monday as their teenaged teammate Anmol Jain deflated the hopes of the other seven contenders in the men’s 10m air-pistol final at the 60th National Shooting Championship.
Whistling, screaming and playing instrumental music was all part of the scene as the shooters from the Haryana let their hair down after finishing their engagements while the 18-year-old Anmol went on to upset a handful of experienced shooters including Vijay Kumar, the 25m rapid-fire silver medalist at the London Olympics, Omkar Singh and P.N. Prakash.
It was only an hour before the eight finalists took their positions for the last event of the championship that Anmol had been beaten by Army’s Gaurav Tomar in the junior final. Anmol had demonstrated his form even in the keen tussle with Tomar, and he had looked set for the big occasion.
In the course of the men’s final, Anmol shot a sequence of 10.6, 10.5 and 10.0 to climb to third position — behind Punjab’s Achal Pratap Grewal and Karnataka’s Prakash — after six shots, and followed that up with 10.6 and 10.7.
Once he took over the lead, there was no stopping the youngster.
A bulls-eye 10.9 on his 18th shot was the high point of his performance in the final, which he finished with a 10.8 and 10.2. His 20-shot final score-sheet had 12 scores of 10 and more.
Prakash took silver and Omkar the bronze. Vijay Kumar was the fourth to be eliminated in the final.
In the men’s 50m rifle 3-position, Army’s Satyendra Singh got the better of his teammate Chain Singh and Navy’s Rahul Poonia.
The results: Men: 10m air pistol: 1. Anmol Jain (Har) 201.4 (579), 2. P.N. Prakash (Kar) 197.5 (578), 3. Omkar Singh (Army) 175.8 (578), 4. Achal Pratap Grewal (Pun) 154.9 (579), 5.Vijay Kumar (Army) 134.3 (578), 6.Gaurav Rana (Utk) 115.4 (580), 7 .Maninder Singh (Pun) 91.4 (577), 8.Vikram Shinde (Mah) 73.0 (577). Team: AMU (Jitu Rai, Manjit Singh, Gaurav Tomar) 1725, 2. Maharashtra (Vikram Shinde,Ronak Pandit, Bagul Rajendra) 1719, 3. Punjab (Maninder Singh, Tinjit Dhanota, Akshay Jain) 1715.
50m rifle 3-position: 1. Satyendra Singh (Army) 450.9 (1164/47x), 2. Chain Singh (Army) 448.4 (1164/56x), 3. Rahul Poonia (Navy) 439.1, (1161/53x), 4. Surendra Singh Rathod (Army) 428.7 (1163), 5. Imran Hazan Khan (Army) 414.4 (1161/53x), 6. Swapnil Kusale (Rly) 401.8 (1159), 7. Deepak Kumar (Air Force) 394.1 (1158), 8. Akhil Sheoran 393.7(Uttar Pradesh) (1157).
25m centre fire pistol: 1. Pemba Tamang (Army) 586, 2. Anhad Jawanda (Pun) 585, 3. Anish (Har) 582. Team: AMU (Pemba Tamang, Vijay Kumar, Gurpreet Singh) 1741.0, 2. Punjab (Anhad Jawanda, Achal Pratap Grewal, Akshay Jain) 1719.0, 3. Navy (Omkar Singh, Rajat Kumar Yadav, Yogesh Singh) 1715.0.
Junior men: 10m air pistol: 1. Gaurav Tomar (Army) 196.2 (571), 2. Anmol Jain (Har) 195.4 (579), 3. Hemendra Singh Kushwaha (Raj) 173.3 (572). Team: 1.Uttarakhand (Gauran Rana,Samarjit Singh, Jatin Singh Rahore) 1713.0, 2. Haryana (Anmol Jain, Lucky, Himanshu Tanwar) 1706.0, AM U (Gaurav Tomar, Yashwant Singh, Gumeet) 1699.0
50m rifle 3-position: 1. Subhankar Pramanick (WB) 442.1 (1132.0), 2. Harshit Binjwa (MP) 430.3 (1117.0), 3. Sarvesh Swaroop Shankar (TN) 418.6 (1129.0) .
