Date:07/01/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/01/07/stories/2008010767322000.htm

Sport - Shooting

Avneet wins air rifle gold

Kirti Patil

AHMEDABAD: Commonwealth Games silver medallist Avneet Kaur Sidhu of Indian Airlines staved off the challenge from the fellow Olympic quota holder, Anjali Bhagwat, to win her maiden National title in the women’s 10m air rifle event at the Rifle Club here on Sunday.

After not so impressive 2007, in which she barely managed to earn the ticket to Olympics in Beijing, Anveet sounded her return to form as she shot 102.8 in the final to beat Anjali by 1.6 points, in the 51st National shooting championship.

The results:

Men: 25m Centre-fire pistol: 1. Vijay Kumar (Army) 584, Samresh Jung (CISF) 583, 3. Poonam Kumar (BSF) 579. Team: 1. Army (C. K. Chaudhary, Vijay, Pemba Tamang) 1731, 2. Border Security Force (Mahender Singh, Poonam Kumar, Naresh Kumar) 1725, 3. Navy (Omkar Singh, Satendra Kumar, Atul Yadav) 1717. Junior: 1. Gurpreet Singh (Army) 578, 2. Narender Singh (Army) 575, 3. Hambir Singh (Army) 568. Women: 10m Air rifle: 1. Avneet Kaur Sidhu (IA) (395, 102.8) 497.8, 2. Anjali Bhagwat (Mah) (395, 101.2) 496.2, 3. Suma Shirur (Rlys) (392, 102.5) 494.5. Team: 1. Maharashtra (Priya Agarwal, Anjali, Tejaswini Sawant) 1177, 2. NCC (Lajja Gauswami, Hema K. C., Sneha Borse) 1168, 3. Railways (Anuja Jung, Deepali Deshpande, Suma) 1165. Junior: 1. Anu Tomer (UP) 394, 2. Lajja (NCC) 394, 3. Hema (NCC) 391. Team: 1. NCC (Lajja, Hema, Sneha) 1168, 2. Maharashtra (Soudamini Gawankar, Neha Sapte, Ayonika Paul) 1159, 3. Haryana (Abhilasha Joshi, Sriyanka Sadangi, Aman Preet) 1149. Champion of champions: Rifle: 1. Sanjeev Rajput (Navy) (103.2) 31.5, 2. Suma Shirur (Rlys) (104.3) 30.6. Pistol: 1. Raj Kumar (Army) (100.7) 30.0, 2. Bapu Vanzare (Army) (99.3) 29.0.