It turned out to be a great day for former world champion from Punjab Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Manavaditya Singh Rathore of Rajasthan at the 63rd National Shooting Championship Competitions (63rdNSCC) being held at Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range. The day saw Manavjit clinch his 12th Men’s Trap national title, while Manavaditya won his maiden title at the national when he clinched the juniors men’s crown.
Manavjit who needed to end on a high in the last round to stay in the race for the title for shotgun events, missed one target for a round of 24. As a result, the Punjab shooter had to face a shoot-off with 7 other contenders for five final qualifying spots.
Kynan Chenai of Telengana, who had to settle for a bronze eventually, was the only shooter to qualify for the finals directly, courtesy his qualifying round performance where he topped with a score of 121 out of 125.
Manavjit then shot 42 out of 50 targets in the final, to outgun state-mate Vishavdev Singh Sidhu who ended with 41. Kynan was eliminated earlier in third place with 32 hits out of the first 40 targets.
While the day saw a former world champion fighting to keep his legacy alive it also saw another star in the making in the junior’s category. The final saw a very close and nail biting battle between Manavaditya and Punjab’s Jungsher Singh Virk.
However, it was the shooter from Rajasthan who clinched his first national title with a minor margin as the score read 45-44 in favour of Manavaditya. Jungsher had to be content with silver. The bronze medal went to Vivaan Kapoor who also hails from Rajasthan.
The day did not end here for Manavjit and Manavaditya also won the team titles in their respective categories to end the day with dual gold medals.
Manavjit joined forces with Jungsher and Namanveer Singh Brar for a total of 358, which put them two ahead of Rajasthan, which also gave Manavaditya silver on the day.
The team of Manavaditya, Vivaan and Aman Ali Elahi sealed the junior men’s team title with a joint effort of 351, leading the team of Haryana by 6 as they could manage a total score of 345 to settle for silver.
