Lakshay Sheoran and Neeru Dhanda finish on top in Second Shotgun National Trials

Lakshay Sheoran. 

Khel Today Bureau

New Delhi: Lakshay Sheoran and Neeru Dhanda finished on top in the men’s and women’s category respectively in the trap finals of the Second Shotgun National Trails, held at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range. Lakshay, who qualified for the finals with a score of 120 in qualification, shot 43 in the finals, a two shot difference over Jaswinder Singh who finished second with a score of 41. In the Women’s finals, Nationals Games gold medalist Neeru edged Aashima Ahlawat 40-39 to secure the top spot. Olympian Rajeshwari Kumari secured third place with a score of 31 while Bhowneesh Mendiratta finished third in the men’s category with a score of 33.

Earlier, in the qualification round, Jungsher S. Virk shot 119 to qualify for the finals behind Lakshay. National Champion Shardul Vihan, Jaswinder Singh, Bhowneesh and Rayyan Rizvi completed the top six with scores of 118, 117, 116 and 116 respectively. Olympians Kynan Chenai (114) and Prithviraj Tondaiman (112) and World Cup finals Silver medalist Vivaan Kapoor (113) failed to reach the finals.

Neeru Dhanda. 

In the women’s category, Neeru topped the qualification also with a score of 115 followed by Preeti Rajak with 114, Aashima Ahlawat with 113, Rajeshwari Kumari with 110, Pragati Dubey with 109 and Addya Katyal finished in the top six places.

A separate selection trial was not conducted for junior athletes; as a result, Bakhtyaruddin Malek who shot 114 and Addya Katyal with 108 were placed first in the junior men’s and women’s category respectively. Tarvez Singh Sandhu who shot 111 and Udhav Singh Rathore with 110 were placed second and third while Ananya Yaduvanshi with 101 and Tanisska Senthilkumar with 98 took the second and third sports in the junior women’s.

The Selection Committee will consider the scores from the recently concluded ISSF Junior World Cup in Suhl, Germany, for junior athletes who participated in that event, as Selection Trials 2 coincided with it. Scores of such shooters will not be marked as “zero.”