Shagun traps gold at National shooting, Manavjit on course
Shagun Chowdhary bagged a national champion crown when she won the women’s trap event at the 61st National Shooting Championship here.
Representing ONGC, Chowdhary, the first Indian woman trap shooter to win an Olympic berth, overcame the challenge from Punjab’s Rajeshwari Kumari to prevail 41-38 in the final.
Defending champion Shreyasi Singh, representing Bihar, finished third with a final round score of 29 on day two of the competitions.
The day began with Shreyasi leading the qualification round. She went on to top the list of qualifiers with a score of 72, while Chowdhary, with 67, qualified third and Rakeshwari shot 62 to qualify in fourth place for the sixwoman final.
N Nivetha of Tamil Nadu, who was also one of the finalists in the senior women’s trap, won the Junior Women’s title in the same event shooting 37. She got the better of Shefali Rajak of Madhya Pradesh in a shoot-off after both had ended the final on the same score.
Delhi’s Soumya Gupta came in third with 26 to claim the bronze medal.
In the men’s trap event, former world champion Manavjit Singh Sandhu continued to lead the qualification field at the end of day two of the competition, shooting 73 out of 75. The men’s trap final is on Friday.
NEW DELHI:
BOXERS TO TRAIN AT JOHNSON’S ACADEMY
India’s top male boxers will make their first trans-Atlantic trip for training and will be based at sprint icon Michael Johnson’s acclaimed high performance centre next month, putting their preparations for Commonwealth Games in top gear.
“We are leaving for the USA for a physical training camp at the Michael Johnson Academy in Texas next month. Boxers who are part of the Target Olympic Podium (TOP) scheme will be travelling for this,” Indian boxing’s High Performance Director and men’s coach Santiago Nieva said, detailing his plans for the April 4 to 15 CWG in Gold Coast next year.
Seven of the 11 boxers, who are currently listed as TOP beneficiaries, will be travelling for the training stint from December 7 to 17 at the state-of-the-art centre, founded by four-time Olympic gold-medallist and nine-time world champ Johnson in 2007.
So, Hamburg bronze-medallist Gaurav Bidhuri (56kg), three-time Asian medallist Shiva Thapa (60kg), former CWG gold-medallist Manoj Kumar (69kg), Amit Panghal (49kg), Kavinder Bisht (52kg), and Sumit Sangwan (91kg) have been selected for the “exciting opportunity”.
WADA REFUSES TO LIFT RUSSIA SUSPENSION
The World Anti-Doping Agency maintained its suspension of Russia on Thursday, raising the spectre of a possible ban from February’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
WADA’s Foundation Board, meeting in Seoul, came to the decision after its Compliance Review Committee recommended that Russia’s anti-doping body, RUSADA, “should not be reinstated”.
The decision had been expected after Russia refused to admit running a state-sponsored doping system.
SEOUL: