Varun clinches maiden 10m pistol gold
Varun Tomar was composed after edging his teammate from Army Pradhyumn Singh for the gold medal in the 10m air pistol final in the National Shooting Championships.
After trailing by 0.1 of a point before the final shot, the Baghpat shooter scored 10.3 to tally 238 and beat Pradhyumn by a mere 0.8 of a point to win his maiden national gold medal. The bronze medal was won by Aakash Bhardwaj who totalled 217.4 points.
This wasn't Varun's first big medal, though. He has won four ISSF World Cup medals, including a gold in the mixed team category at the 2023 Cairo World Cup.
The win, however, was important because of the seesaw nature of the final, which also included Saurabh Chaudhary, who is incidentally Varun's cousin.
Varun only led the field in the business part of the competition. In fact, he only came into the medal contention by the 18th shot in the 24-shot final. Two shots later, he was in sole lead and looked like running away with the final. However, a below average score of 9 off the penultimate shot opened a window for Pradhyumn to stake a claim for the national title. The naib subedar then won it with his last shot.
"It was very close but I was conscious to follow my process and thankfully I succeeded today. I had a bad time previously so my plan was to do well starting with the Nationals. And I am happy," he said.
Varun he returned to win the junior men's gold in similar fashion. He went into the lead with the 21st shot as leader Nikhil Saroha registered a score of 8.5. Varun won the junior gold with a total of 246.2 with Saroha finishing second with a total of 243.2 points. Pradhyumn won the bronze medal with a total of 222.8 points.
In the youth final, UP's Chirag Sharma saw off teammate and 14-year-old Dev Pratap by a margin of 1.3 points to win the gold medal. Rajasthan's Mayank Choudhary won bronze.
