In a battle of heavyweights in the women’s 10m air rifle, Elavenil Valarivan emerged the top name on the concluding day of the 66th National Shooting Championship on Saturday.
World No 13 Elavenil, who turned out for Gujarat, upstaged World No 7 Ramita and World No 15 Nancy, both from Haryana, to strike gold at the Karni Singh Shooting Range in New Delhi.
The 24-year-old Tokyo Olympian came into the Nationals riding good form with gold at this year’s Rio de Janeiro World Cup and a 7th spot at the World Cup Final in Doha last month.
Gold medallist at the 2019 World Cup Final in Putian, Elavenil shot 253.4 (632.9) to upstage Ramita (252.5) and Nancy (231.7). Ramita nd Nancy both registered 632.5 in the qualification.
The top-three in this category makes for impressive reading as Ramita is a bronze medallist at the Hangzhou Asian Games and Asian Shooting Championship in Changwon.
Nancy won silver at the Baku World Cup, and has a gold and silver in team events among juniors at the 2022 Cairo World Championship.
Mehuli Ghosh, who secured an Olympic quota for India courtesy the bronze at the Baku World Championship, finished 4th in the final with a score of 209.8 (632.1).
Maharashtra’s Isha Taksale created a youth national record of 633.3 for the top score among women, junior and youth women in qualification, but finished seventh among youth women and eighth in women and junior women in the final.
It was a lucrative day for Ramita as she raked in medals in the junior and youth women categories as well. While it was gold in junior women (254.9), 252 was good enough for silver in youth women.
Gautami Bhanot of Madhya Pradesh struck gold among youth women with a score of 252.9 (629.3) and was again on the podium with bronze in junior women with a score of 231.6.
Bronze in youth women went to Punjab’s Sanjeeta Das with a score of 230.5 (630.9), while Haryana’s Disha Dhankhar settled for silver behind Ramita in junior women with a score of 252.7 (631.5).
Another Olympic quota winner Tilottama Sen, representing Karnataka, finished fourth in junior women, 20th in women and 9th in qualification among youth women. The 15-year-old was 4th at this year’s Baku World Championship and had silver at the Asian Shooting Championship in Changwon.