NEW DELHI, April 13: Mansher Singh has by now developed a habit of first putting himself in an awkward situation and then finding a way out of it. Monday was another such occasion when he found himself in a tight spot when Punjab's Zorawar Singh Sandhu shot 25 out of 25 in the final -- he is the only one to do the feat in this meet -- to tie the score at 130-all in the 41st National Shooting Championship of the trap event at the Dr Karni Singh Range here.But the Olympian and the World Cup bronze medallist from Delhi wriggled himself out of the mire once again to win the gold and, in the bargain, pushed teammate and defending champion Moraad Ali Khan out of medal reckoning.
With the score tied at 130 each, the sudden death was applied and Zorawar began first hitting the bird without any fuss. Mansher followed suit and both cleared the next two shots each with precision. But as Zorawar aimed and shot on his fourth attempt he knew he had missed out on the gold. For, Mansher would take no more chance. Hisaim was perfect and the bird went into pieces and with it a shy of relief on Mansher's face became visible.In the women's Sports Rifle Prone 50m event, Roopa Unnikrishnan asserted her supremacy with a National mark by scoring 593 out of 600. This has, more or less, ensured a gold for her. But evidently, this mark has erased the best of 590 by Soma Dutta at the Beijing Asiad in 1990.
Though Soma Dutta is not in the fray, Kuheli Gangulee of the CISF will rue the record for she is lying fourth at 575 and she won the gold scoring 586 at the Chennai SAF Games in 1995.
In centre-fire pistol, the Asian Games gold medallist Jaspal Rana was second behind Naresh Kumar of BSF, four points separating each other after 30 shots today. Another round of 30 shots tomorrow will decider the medallist and Jaspal hoped to get into rhythm.
RESULTS
Men: Clay pigeon trap: Mansher Singh (Del) 130 (4/3), Zoravar Singh Sadhu (Pun) 130 (3/4), Manavjit Singh (Pun) 127 (4/3), Moraad Ali Khan 127 (3/4).Team: Delhi (SyedIrshad Kazim, Moraad Ali Khan, Mansher Singh) 311, Punjab (Zoravar Singh Sandhu, Manavjit Singh, Anudeep Sandhu) 309, Uttar Pradesh (GR Khan, Anwar Sultan, Gaurav Sondhi) 284.
Junior: Varun Mohan Soni (Del) 97, Ronjan S Sodhi (Pun) 95, Nayab Khan (UP) 89.
Team: Uttar Pradesh (Nayab Khan, SM Faisal, Saif Sheikh) 227, Punjab (Ronjan S Sodhi, Rana Inder Pratap Singh, Kanwarinder S Dhillon) 222.
Centre fire pistol Open Precision (25m): Naresh Kumar (BSF) 297, Jaspal Rana (Del) 293, Vivek Singh (Del) 290, Murad Khan (BSF) 288, Resham Thakur (Mah) 288, Dhyan Singh (Army) 288, Bhanwar Lal Dhaka (Army) 286, Ashok Pandit (Mah) 286.
Free Rifle Prone Open (50m): MT Sutar (BSF) 590/600, AP Subbiah (Army) 587, Hanumana Ram (BSF) 585, Bishnu Nag (Navy) 585, Krishan Singh (Army) 582, Deepak K Dubey (Navy) 582, Girdhari Lal (BSF) 580, Iqbal Ahmed (BSF) 579.
Women: Sports Rifle Prone 50m: Roopa Unnikrishnan (TN)593/600 (NMR), Anuja Tere (Rly) 578, Anjali Vedpathak (Mah) 575, Kuheli Gangulee (CISF) 575, Zeny Thakkar(CISF) 573, Suma Dixit (Rly) 572, Chaitali Das (WB) 571, Birmati (Army) 566.
Juniors: Usha Sharma (INF) 563, S Shreepriya (TN) 557, Reena GalDixit (Rly) 572, Chaitali Das (WB) 571, Birmati (Army) 566.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
