Shooting: Sushma rewrites National record

By Kamesh Srinivasan

MOHALI, NOV. 24. Sushma Rana shot brilliantly to clinch the sport pistol gold with a National record in the National Games here on Saturday.

The 22-year-old Sushma was in such good form that she won the gold with a 16.2 point margin, as she followed a 579 in the preliminary phase with a 100.5 in the final.

The young sister of Jaspal Rana, Sushma had scores of 291 and 288 in the precision and duelling series respectively, and had rounds of 10.8, 10.6, 10.5, 9.9, 9.5, 10.1, 10.1, 10.0, 9.8 and 9.2 in the final.

The previous record of 578 in the preliminaries and 667.0 after the final had stood against the name of Sonia Rana, who finished fourth this day.

Saroja Kumari and Shilpi Singh took the silver and bronze respectively, while Jaspal's wife Reena Rana did well to clinch the seventh spot.

After a lot of hiccups, there was lively action at the trap range. Anwar Sultan shot the gold, ahead of Mansher Singh and Manavjit Singh.

The 39-year-old Anwar had taken a two-point lead over the Commonwealth championship winner Mansher before the final, and eventually won with a three-point margin. Major R. V. S. Rathore was in fine form in the final, in which he was the only one to shoot a perfect 25, and finished fourth at 130. Zorawar Singh was in woeful form and took the fifth spot with a 126 out of 150.

It was creditable on the part of the shotgun marksmen to have shot four rounds and the final in one day, as only one round could be completed on Friday. Usually, the first day has three rounds and the next day, two rounds followed by the final.

In the men's free rifle 3-position event, Joydeep Banerjee of West Bengal led with a tally of 1135, five points ahead of A. P. Subbiah and Charan Singh of the Services. T. C. Palangappa, M. Kumar, Vishwajit Shinde and Shamsher Singh were the others to make the final, which has been rescheduled for Sunday, because of inadequate light in the evening.

The Services clinched the gold with a total of 3387 points, ahead of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan which took the silver and bronze with 3301 and 3288 points respectively.

The results (finals):

Men: Trap: 1. Anwar Sultan (UP) (23, 21, 25, 23, 24; 23) 139 (NMR, old 137); 2. Mansher Singh (Del) (22, 25, 20, 25, 22; 22) 136; 3. Manavjit Singh (Punj) (23, 21, 24, 24, 21; 22) 135.

Team: 1. Punjab (Manavjit Singh 113, Zorawar Singh 106, Birendeep Sodhi 97) 316; 2. Uttar Pradesh (S. M. Faisal 102, G. R. Khan 92, Anwar Sultan 116) 310; 3. Delhi (Mansher Singh 114, Irshad Kazim 95, Karan Kumar 91) 300.

Women: 25-metre sport pistol: 1. Sushma Rana (Del) (579 NR, old 578) 679.5 NR, old 667.0; 2. Saroja Kumari (Serv) (565) 663.3; 3. Shilpi Singh (Har) (565) 658.1.

Team: 1. Delhi (Sushma Rana 579, Sonika Mannon 551, Bharti Singh 520) 1650; 2. Himachal Pradesh (Sonia Rana 560, Shivani Rana 494, Reena Rana 550) 1604; 3. Haryana (Shilpi Singh 565, Shweta Chaudhary 551, Seema Gaur 480) 1596.

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