Railways' Pankaj Mukheja upstages Aishwary Tomar in shooting trials

Railways' Pankaj Mukheja won his second match in two days, emerging victorious in the men's 50m rifle 3 positions event at the national selection trials after getter the better of Olympian Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar here on Sunday.

He had won the T3 (third) trials of the same event on Saturday.

In the T4 gold medal match, Pannkaj overcame local favourite Tomar 16-12 to come out on top.

Also winning on the day was Mehuli Ghosh, now representing the ONGC. She won the women's 10m air rifle T4 trials with a 17-9 result over her former state-mate Swarnali Roy of West Bengal. Rajasthan's Bhavesh Shekhawat claimed the men's 25m rapid fire pistol T4 trials.

The day, however, belonged to Pankaj, who completed the men's 3P double on his current trip to Bhopal, after getting the better of Railways colleague Swapnil Kusale in the T3 trials.

Swapnil was pushed to third on Sunday by India number one Aishwary who finished second in the ranking round to claim the right to challenge Pankaj for gold.

The winner for the second consecutive day finished on top of the eight-man ranking round field after shooting 413.2 as Aishwary finished with 409.7. This was after finishing only sixth in the qualifiers with a score of 580 even as Swapnil shot 590 to top the field and Aishwary qualified second with a 585.

In the women's 10m air rifle, Mehuli also shot an impressive 632.2 in qualification, which was the second highest score in two trials running. She however finished second as Maharashtra's Himani Chondhe upstaged her with a 634.5.

In the ranking round, West Bengal's Swarnali Roy, who had finished third in qualification with a 631.1, upstaged all to finish on top with a score of 263.2. Mehuli followed her to the gold medal match with a 262.6 while Shriyanka Sadangi was third with 262.2.

Mehuli's experience, however, was too good for Swarnali in the final as the former won comfortably in the end.

Bhavesh Shekhawat of Rajasthan emerged triumphant in the men's 25m rapid fire pistol. He shot 577 to qualify in the third position and then topped the first semi-final with 15 hits.

The medal match saw him line up against the likes of Olympic silver medallist Vijay Kumar and regular India international Neeraj Kumar of the Army besides CISF's Udit Joshi. Bhavesh pipped Neeraj 30-29 to win as Vijay finished third with 20 hits.

Among juniors, rising local star Gautami Bhanot did a double in the women's 10m air rifle, winning the T4 trials to go with her earlier T3 win.

Vedant Waghmare of Maharashtra won the junior men's 3P while Mahesh Anandkumar of Tamil Nadu won the junior men's 25m rapid fire T4 title.