Shooting nationals: National glory for Sift, Ganemat & Anantjeet

New Delhi, November 29

Reigning Asian Games gold medallist Sift Kaur Samra cinched her second consecutive women’s 50m rifle 3 positions title, getting the better of senior Punjab state-mate Anjum Moudgil in the National Shooting Championship here today.

Ganemat Sekhon and Anantjeet Singh Naruka, arguably India’s top women’s and men’s skeet shooters at present, won their maiden individual senior national titles.

Sift shot 465.7 in the final to clinch gold, pushing Anjum (463.8) to second spot. Ashi Chouksey of Madhya Pradesh came third with a score of 452.

Anjum took the lead after the first 15 kneeling shots, but Sift overtook her after the 15 prone shots and never looked back. Whatever hopes Anjum had of overhauling Sift evaporated with a poor 9.8 on her 43rd shot. Sift and Anjum also earned the team gold for Punjab.

Earlier, young Haryana shooter Nischal created a new qualification national record with a score of 595. That effort helped her top the round with Sift taking the second place with a score of 593. Ashi was third with 590, while Anjum bagged the eighth and final qualifying spot with a score of 587.

In skeet, Punjab’s Ganemat and Rajasthan’s Anantjeet took contrasting paths towards the same result. Ganemat shot a below-par 116 in qualification and had to come through a five-way shoot-off for four qualifying places. She then shot down 56 targets to win the 60-shot final. Qualifying leader Zahra Deesawala was second with 55 hits while Sanjana Sood was third with 44.

In men’s skeet, Anantjeet shot at a different level, registering a wire-to-wire victory. He topped the qualifiers with 123 hits out of 125. The next best in the field was 121.

In the six-man final, he gunned down 58 out of 60 targets to leave silver-winning Munek Battula well behind on 55. Bhavtegh Gill won bronze after hitting 45 out of the first 50 targets.