NEW DELHI: Seasoned rifle shooter and Tokyo Olympics quota holder Sanjeev Rajput on Friday continued his good form by winning gold in the men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions T4 national selection trial.
The two-time Olympian thus won three of the four trials held this year. He made it to all four finals.
Rajput shot his best qualifying score of the four trials, a top-class 1182, to advance to the eight-man final in pole position. Following him in the second place was Madhya Pradesh’s young Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, who shot an equally impressive 1181.
Aishwary is also one of the 15 Tokyo Olympics quotas holders.
Rajput was class apart in the finals too, shooting yet another season-high score of 463.1 to leave second-placed Niraj Kumar way behind with 459.6.
Also continuing her red-hot form was women’s 10m Air Rifle exponent and current world number one Elavenil Valarivan.
After going past the finals world record in the T3 event on Thursday, she won the T4 trials as well with a final round score of 251.6. She had also topped the qualification round with a score of 632.1, just 1.9 off the world record mark.
Yashaswini Deswal was another Tokyo Olympics quota holder to register a victory on the day. She won the women’s 10m Air Pistol T4 trials with an effort of 242.9 in the final.
Seasoned competitor Shweta Singh of ONGC was second with 240.6. Manu Bhaker, the winner of the T3 trials in the event, reached yet another final, but finished seventh eventually.
The final winner of the day came in the men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol T4 event where Arpit Goel of Delhi emerged victorious in the final shoot-out with a score of 30. Adarsh Singh was second with 29, while Vijayveer Sidhu was third with 25 hits.