The Hindu : Sport / Shooting : Star cast at shotgun Nationals

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Wednesday, Nov 24, 2004

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Sport - Shooting

Star cast at shotgun Nationals

By Our Sports Reporter

NEW DELHI, NOV. 23. The radiance of the Olympic silver medal has certainly cast a golden shadow over the sport of shotgun shooting.

Though it may take a few more seasons to reap harvest from the inspiration provided by the Athens Olympic feat of the double trap marksman Major Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, a few signs are already showing.

Never before have so many entries been received in the shotgun events, and as the 48th National shotgun shooting championship begins at the Dr. Karni Singh Ranges in Tughlakabad, the organisers are grappling to do time management with the available number of ranges.

While all the top shooters in trap, double trap and skeet events, including the Olympic medallist Rathore, have entered in the fray, the entries across the board have swelled, making it difficult to squeeze in the championship in two days with limited ranges at hand.

The International Shooting Sports Federation (ISSF) rules specify that the trap and skeet events be conducted over two days and double trap be completed in one day. But with the number of entries taking a huge leap this year it will be a race against time for the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) during the next four days.

The championship opens with trap and skeet on Wednesday with both finals on Thursday afternoon. The double trap event will be held on Saturday with official practice slated on Friday.

Meanwhile, in the all-India G. V. Mavlankar championship, the qualification event for the Nationals, eight shooters in trap and 13 in skeet made it to the main draw. Uttar Pradesh's Furqan Rizvi set a new meet record in the skeet event scoring 44 out of 50. With the qualifying mark set at 33, 13 shooters made it in the men's section. Four junior marksmen also achieved the qualifying mark, which took the total number of entries to 64. There will be just one woman in the fray, Aarti Singh.

In trap, army's Seema Tomar set a new meet record shooting 29, but her score was well below the mark leaving just four women in the main draw. With three junior shooters scoring above 33, the total entries have increased to 55 in the men's section.

The results (all qualifiers):

All-India G. V. Mavlankar championship: Trap: Men: 1. M. D. Vikram (AP) and Anant Shivan Pratap (UP) 39, 3. K. M. A. Ansari (AP) 38, 4. Ankur Singh (IA) 36, 5. Kanwar Dhillon (Pun) 35, 6. S. Yasser Ibrahim (UP), Ranjit Kumar (ONGC) and Mohammed Adil Khan (Del) 33.

Junior men: 1. Anant Shivan Pratap (UP) 39, 2. Huzaifah Saeed (UP) 34, 3. Syed Rehanuddin (UP) 33.

Double trap: Men: 1. Mairaj Ahmad Khan (Cht) 39, 2. Harpreet Singh Mandla (Del) 32, 3. K. M. A. Ansari (AP) and Afrat Khan (Utr) 31, 5. Qamar Jamal (UP) and Talha ul-Islam (UP) 30.

Junior men: 1. Nitin Kumar (Del) and Yoginder Singh (Del) 34, 3. Syed Hassanuddin (UP) 33, 4. Udayan Singh (Utr) 31.

Skeet: Men: 1. Furqan Rizvi (UP) 44, 2. Gusti J. Noria (AP) 40, 3. Raj Gopal Reddy (AP), Haris ul-Islam (UP) and K. Rajsekar (TN) 39, 6. Arozepal S. Sandhu (Pun), Randeep Mann (Har) and Zaid A. Khan (Del) 38, 9. Mohammed Yusuf Khan (UP) 37, 10. Anil Langan (Del) 36, 11. Syed Zaheen Ahmad (UP), Mohammed Khalid Khan (UP) and Prabhdeep Singh Sethi (Utr) 34.

Junior men: 1. Zaid A. Khan (Del) 38, 2. Man Singh (Del) 35, 3. Mohammed Sheeraz Sheikh (UP) and Sherbir Panag (Inf) 33.

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