C Kavi Rakshna, Divyansh Singh Panwar come out top in 10m Air Rifle events at national T2 shooting trials

Tamil Nadu’s C Kavi Rakshna and Rajasthan’s Divyansh Singh Panwar won the women’s and men’s 10m Air Rifle events respectively at the National Shooting T2 trials on Sunday. Kavi Rakshna, who has come through the ranks of the junior programme, emerged on top in a quality field which included current world number one Elavenil Valarivan as well as Tokyo Olympics quota holders Apurvi Chandela and Anjum Moudgil, among others. Rakshna shot 251.4 in the finals to win the event ahead of Rajasthan’s Nisha Kanwar (250.7). Gujarat’s Elavenil, who had won the T1 trials earlier, finished third. Nisha had topped the 60-shots qualifying round with a score of 630.7 while Rakshna had shot 627.7 to qualify in seventh spot. In the final though, Rakshna led from start to finish. In the men’s event, Punjab’s Arjun Babuta topped qualification for the second trial running, shooting a solid 632.1 to lead the field of eight into the finals. But it was Tokyo Olympics quota holder and world number one Divyansh Singh Panwar of Rajasthan, who had the last laugh in the 24-shots final round. He finished with 250.9 to edge out Maharashtra’s Rudranksh Balasaheb Patil who shot 249.7. The winner of T1 trials, Assam’s Hriday Hazarika, had to be satisfied with a third-place finish.