Local girl Ashi Chouksey bagged her maiden national title, overwhelming Anjum Moudgil of Punjab in the women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions (3P) final of the ongoing 67th National Shooting Championship Competitions (NSCC) for Rifle events, here at her home MP State Academy (MPSA) shooting range.
Ashi shot a superb 466.7, a full 3.1 points clear of two-time Olympian Anjum. Upcoming talent Sakshi Sunil Padekar of Maharashtra won bronze with an effort of 451.3 and then went on to win a silver in the junior women’s 3P as well to round off a successful day.
Ashi, who has been in great shooting form over the past two years and was also a part of the Paris Olympic trials, extended her run of good form with a solid 590 in qualifications, to get into the eight-woman match-up in third place.
Bhakti Bhaskar Khamkar of Maharashtra topped the qualification field with a blazing 592, while Anjum qualified second, her effort of 590 containing more hits to the inner 10 rings than Ashi. While Sakshi took the sixth spot, another Olympian Shriyanka Sadangi qualified seventh.
In the final, however, Ashi brooked no opposition, opening up a 2.3 points gap over Anjum at the end of the first Kneeling position itself, which she maintained after the 15 shots in the second Prone position also. That increased to 2.9 after 10-shots of the last Standing position and despite a few high 9s after that, the result was never in doubt.
In the junior women’s 3P Karnataka’s Anoushka H Thokur shot 460.5 in the final to upstage Sakshi, who settled for silver on 456.3. Haryana’s Nishchal, an ISSF World Cup silver medallist for India last year, shot 443.9 to settle for bronze.
Both Anjum and Sakshi did pick up gold on the day, however, as they won the respective women’s 3P senior and junior team events. Anjum partnered with fellow Olympian Sift Kaur Samra and Vanshika Sahi to total 1766 for the team gold, while Sakshi teamed up with Prachi Gaekwad and Saniya Sapale to clinch the junior women’s 3P team title with a tally of 1747.
