Eighth in the qualification roster with a score of 378, ONGC’s Heena Sidhu — who hails from Patiala — outclassed her opponents in the Women’s 10m Air Pistol at the ongoing 60th National Shooting Championship in Pune.
The 27-year-old made it to the final only because of her superior inner-10-ring scores in comparison with Delhi’s Sanjan Sherawat and Madhya Pradesh’s Kajal Patel, who also finished with a qualification score of 378.
Heena’s precision shooting at crucial junctures, including a bull’s eye 10.9 in the highly successful 15th single shot of the elimination stage and scores of 10.6 and 10.5 in the penultimate ninth series made sure that she would romp home.
Rajasthan’s Yasha Singh and Haryana’s Yashaswini competed well, but could not stop Heena who had won the 25m Pistol event a few days ago.
Heena showed clear signs of her determination to put up a good show in the opening two series when competitors had to string three shots each in a time of two and half minutes. She had four scores of 10 plus and led with an overall 61.2.
Haryana’s Muskan — who did not see luck running in her favour in the youth and junior finals — improved her accuracy to a great extent in the women’s final and even occupied the third and second position, before Yasha and Yashaswini staged a comeback.
Those eliminated before the bronze medal round were Priyanka Susvirkar, Shreya Gawande, Harveen Sarao, Harshada Nithave and Muskan.
The three finals in the air pistol for youth, junior and women was delayed by almost two hours with a power glitch causing malfunctioning of the monitors and display screen for spectators.
The Results:
Women’s 10m Air Pistol: 1. Heena Sidhu (ONGC) 201.9 (378), 2. Yasha Singh (Raj) 197.8 (380), 3. Yashaswini Singh (Har) 176.7 (380), 4. Muskan (Har) 167.4 (379) 5. Harshada Nithave (Mah) 132.8 (382), 6. Harveen Sarao (Pun) 115.1 (380), 7. Shreya Gawande (Mah) 91.9 (379), 8. Priyanka Susvirkar (Rlys) 72.9 (378).
Team: 1. Maharashtra 1135; 2. Punjab 1127; 3. Madhya Pradesh 1115.
Junior Women’s 10m Air Pistol: 1. Sweta Yadav 198.9 (377); 2. Harshada Nithave 198.0 (382); 3. Yasha Singh 175.6 (380).
Team: 1. Punjab 1114; 2. Maharashtra 1109; 3. Rajasthan 1107.
Youth Women’s 10m Air Pistol: 1. Harshada Nithave 194.7 (382); 2. Priya Raghav 194.2 (374); 3. AS Shalini 170.7 (375).
Team: 1. Maharashtra 1125; 2. Haryana 1099; 3. Punjab 1084.
