Tokyo Olympian Divyansh Singh Panwar was in the thick of action at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range on Friday, and the efforts yielded fruit as he reaped a handful of medals in 10m air rifle at the ongoing 66th National Shooting Championship in New Delhi.
The 21-year-old, who was part of the gold-winning team at the Hangzhou Asian Games, won silver among men and gold in juniors to add to Rajasthan’s medal tally.
Karnataka’s Darius Saurastri was crowned the men’s national champion with a score of 251.3 (631.0). A bronze medallist in juniors last year and credible 8th at the Goa National Games, Bangalore resident Darius started shooting in 2017 and is yet to make his international debut, but the gold should hasten his entry to the Indian team.
Divyansh shot 250.3 (630.5) and the silver came on the back of the team gold at the Hangzhou Asian Games, where he teamed up with Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar and Rudrankksh Patil to create a world record of 1893.7.
He was followed by Sandeep with a score of 228.9 (630.0) of Army. Heavyweights Aishwary of Madhya Pradesh and Rudrankksh of Maharsahtra made the final but could not find the podium as they finished 5th with 186.0 (632.1) and 6th with 164.8 (632.6), respectively.
Aishwary had won gold in 50m rifle three positions on Sunday, but Olympic quota winner Rudrankksh’s lean run continued.
Rudrankksh had a dismal run at the World Cup Final in Doha, where he shot his lowest international score to finish 13th among 15 shooters.
Crowned world champion in 2022, the podium seems to be eluding Rudrankksh as he had finished 4th at the Asian Games and National Games as well.
Another Olympic quota winner Arjun Babuta of Punjab finished 17th with a score of 628.1 in a field of 968 shooters.
In juniors, Divyansh (253.6) was followed by Haryana’s Talwar Singh with 251.2 (629.6) and Gujarat’s Keval Prajapati with 229.9 (629.8).
Rudrankksh finished second in qualification among juniors, but floundered at the final hurdle and finished 7th with a score of 144.8.
Bengal’s 15-year-old Abhinav Shaw showed why 2023 has been a standout year by creating a national record of 633.3 in qualification among junior and youth men. The score was good enough to give him the top spot in qualification among men too, but was perhaps done in by inexperience, he finished 4th in the final with a score of 208.1.
Abhinav has been among medals of late, claiming a junior bronze at the Asian Shooting Championship and gold in mixed team events at this year’s Changwon Junior World Championship and Suhl Junior World Cup.
Abhinav shot a score of 252.2 to win the youth gold comfortably ahead of Uttar Pradesh’s Anish Dabas with 249.8 (627.6) and Bengal’s Baiduriya Biswas with 228.8 (628.0).