National shooting trials: Ayonika Paul wins women's 10m Air Rifle T1; Vijayveer Sidhu clinches junior men's 25m Pistol T2 title

Thiruvananthapuram: Olympian Ayonika Paul and Vijayveer Sidhu won the women’s 10m Air Rifle T1 and junior men’s 25m Pistol T2 events respectively in the National Shooting trials here on Thursday. Ayonika overcame a quality eight-woman field which had the likes of Tokyo 2020 quota holders Apurvi Chandela and Anjum Moudgil among competitors. [caption id=“attachment_7196531” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] Ayonika registered a score of 252.0 enroute to victory. Her effort was just 0.9 behind Apurvi’s world record of 252.9. Apurvi came third with a score of 229.8 but it was Himachal’s Zeena Khitta, who had the best day in women’s Air Rifle event, coming in second place with a score of 251.1. Zeena also won the junior women’s trials in the same event and also had the best qualifying score on the day with a 630.0 to show after 60 shots. Chandigarh’s Vijayveer won the junior men’s 25m Pistol with an aggregate score of 585. He had three inner 10s, more than second placed Rajkanwar Singh Sandhu of Punjab. Earlier on Monday at the Dr Karni Singh Range in New Delhi, Sheeraz Sheikh of Uttar Pradesh won the men’s Skeet T2 trials with a top quality score of 57 out of 60 hits in the final. He got the better of Rajasthan’s Anantjeet Singh Naruka, who shot 53.