Hyderabad: Pistol ace Esha Singh won the junior women’s final at the National Shooting Trials T7 at the Karni Singh Shooting Range in New Delhi on Tuesday.
The 14-year-old, who has been in fine form of late, shot 244.0 in the junior women’s 10 metre air pistol final, a score better than the junior world record of 243.3 set by Xiang Rarxin of China at the Asian Shooting Championship in Kuwait City in 2018. However, since the current one in Delhi is not an International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) event, Esha’s scores will stand as a national record.
By that measure, the Hyderabad shooter became the youngest national champion and youngest national junior record holder in the 10m air pistol event. Esha’s qualification score was 574. She also came third in the Youth category.
The performance also earned her selection in the Indian team for the Asian Championship to be held from November 4 to 14 in Doha, Qatar.
Manu Bhaker, multiple World Cup gold medallist in the 10m air pistol category, did not take part in the national trials.
In other action, Haryana’s Shikha Narwal won the Youth category. Yogesh Singh of the Indian Navy won the men’s Centre Fire Pistol.
Shri Nivetha of Tamil Nadu won the women’s 10 metre Air Pistol shooting 239.7 at the Nationals where Rio World Cup gold medallist Yashaswini Deswal finished out of medal bracket.
Maharashtra’s Harshada Nithave shot 237.5 to claim second spot. Anoushka Bharadwaj of Rajasthan came third with 218.4.
Rio 2019 World Cup gold medalist Yashaswini of Haryana returned the best score in the qualification round, shooting 583 to top the field. She however finished fourth in the finals.
