Elavenil, Hazarika clinch 10m rifle titles at shooting national trials

New Delhi, Jan 9 : Reigning world number one Elavenil Valarivan won the womens T1 10m air rifle national selection trials at the Karni Singh Shooting Range here on Saturday while Assams Hriday Hazarika won the corresponding mens competition.Gujarats Elavenil shot 628.

3 after the 60-shot qualification round to enter the final in fourth place.Rajasthans Nisha Kanwar top scored with 631.8 as she led a strong eight-woman field into the final.The world number one turned out to be too strong in the final, beating senior shooter and Olympian Ayonika Paul of the Railways comfortably.Elavenil finished with 251.7, two points ahead of second-placed Ayonika.Shriyanka Sadangi of Odhisa finished third.In the mens event, Assams Hriday Hazarika delivered a start to finish performance in the final, beating Madhya Pradeshs Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, a Tokyo Olympics quota holder, 253.2 to 251.5.Punjabs Arjun Babuta, who had topped qualifying round earlier with a score of 629.6, finished third with 230.0.Two-time Olympian Sanjeev Rajput, who had won the T1 50m rifle 3 position trials earlier, finished fourth.The day also saw the commencement of the mens and womens T2 skeet shooting trials.

Zahara Deesawala and Aayush Rudraraju were leading the womens and mens qualification fields, respectively.The final will be held on Sunday.