State lad excels in double-trap national shooting tourney

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, December 2

State’s youngest double-trap shooter Shapath Bharadwaj secured the second national rank in the junior category and the 3rd rank in the senior category in the 60th National Shooting Championship (shotgun) that concluded in Jaipur recently.

Shapath scored 136/150, which is his highest score in India, while his teammates Jaisal Singh and Yoginder Pal Singh Sansanwal scored 131/150 and 124/150, respectively, and they together won the bronze medal of team (senior) for Uttarakhand. A total 114 shooters participated in the senior category and 77 in the junior category.

This is the first time when a shotgun team of Uttarakhand has won a medal in the national championship of shotgun. Shapath, a student of class IX, impressed the shooting fraternity by his excellent performance. He was on the top in the senior (age 21 and above) and junior (12 to 21 years) categories till the end of the fourth round when he shot 28, 29, 28, 29 out of 30. He then shot 22 in the fifth round and lagged behind only by one point from defending champion Ahva Rizvi of Uttar Pradesh, who scored 137/150.

Shapath will participate in the selection trails for the ISSF World Cup scheduled to be held in New Delhi in February next year. The country’s five top-ranked players would be eligible to participate in the world cup and the ranking would be decided by adding the scores of the national championship and both trials together.