Punjab's Vijayveer Sidhu beat fellow Olympian Gurpreet Singh of Army Marksmanship Unit to clinch his maiden men's 25m rapid-fire pistol (RFP) title at the on-going 67th National Shooting Championship Competitions (NSCC) for pistol events in New Delhi on Thursday. (More Sports News)
Taking aim at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range (DKSSR) Finals Hall, Paris Olympian Vijayveer got the better of Rio Olympian Gurpreet 28-25 in the title round. Air Force's Shivam Shukla finished third with a score of 23.
Vijayveer shot 581 in the qualifications to make it to the six-man eight series of five rapid-fire shots final round in second position, behind Uttar Pradesh's Ankur Goel, who shot 585.
Gurpreet, who announced after the finals that this would be his last nationals as he was turning to coaching, only managed to clinch the sixth and last spot with a score of 575.
In the final, however, Vijayveer looked comfortable and was a cut above the rest from the second series onwards.
Gurpreet rolled back the years to overcome two shoot-offs, one to secure a medal.
In the junior men's RFP, Maharashtra's Raajwardan Ashutosh Paatil won the gold with 31 hits to his name. He sealed the deal with three consecutive perfect 5s for fifth, sixth and seventh series respectively, giving the rest of the field no chance.
Suraj Sharma of Madhya Pradesh was second with 23 hits, while Abhinav Choudhary of Rajasthan won bronze with a score of 21 against his name.
