Shahu Mane wins first senior national title, Rudrankksh Patil surpasses world record enroute junior crown

Dhanush Srikanth, Shahu Tushar Mane, Yash Vardhan after the men’s 10m air rifle final at the M.P. State Shooting Academy range in Bhopal. 

Khel Today Bureau

Bhopal: Decorated international rifle shooter Shahu Tushar Mane of the Railways, clinched his first senior national title, winning gold in the popular men’s 10m Air Rifle event at the 67th National Shooting Championship Competitions (NSCC) for Rifle events, currently underway at Bhopal’s M.P. State Academy (MPSA) Shooting range.

Also hogging the limelight was former world champion Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil of Maharashtra, who shot a sizzling 254.9 to win the junior final, surpassing the existing senior finals world record held by Olympic Champion Sheng Lihao of China, by a margin of 0.4.

It was Shahu however, who set the ball rolling on men’s Air Rifle Day at the MPSA finals hall, shooting nothing below 10.1 in the 24-shot final to win it by the barest of margins. The Kolhapur boy, who began shooting in 2015 and has won an ISSF World Cup gold in the air rifle mixed team as well as an individual silver in the Youth Olympics, managed to hold off a late surge by Dhanush Srikanth.

The talented Telangana shooter was left to rue the 9.8 he logged for his fifth shot, as he finished with 252.2, just 0.1 behind the winner. Both the gold and silver medallists shot identical 10.6 and 10.5 for their final two shots as excitement reached fever pitch in the stands.

Rajasthan’s Yash Vardhan won bronze, finishing ahead of Rudrankksh. Besides the Maharashtrian, the men’s final also had another Olympian Ravi Kumar in the field, with the Air Force shooter finishing eighth.

Rudrankksh sizzled in junior men’s final

Former world champion Rudrankksh Patil then managed to ward off the disappointment of the senior final, and perhaps in small measure, that of missing out on the Paris Olympics as well as he landed the junior men’s title with a virtuoso performance. His second shot was a 10.0, but besides that there was nothing under 10.3 as he left silver winner Abishek Sekhar of Karnataka a big 3.5 points behind. Haryana’s Himanshu won bronze.

Himanshu wins gold in youth category

The talented young Haryana shooter featured in all three men’s individual finals on the day, finally winning gold in the men’s 10m Air Rifle Youth competition with a score of 253.0. It was his second medal of the day. Madhya Pradesh’s Yash Pandey was 2.2 behind in second while West Bengal’s Abhiav Shaw won bronze.