Shooter Shahzar Rizvi ended a brilliant 2017 by winning the Men's 10m Air Pistol Gold at the 61st National Shooting Championship (NSCC), at the Karni Singh Shooting Range here on Sunday.
Representing the Air Force, Shahzar won with a new finals national record score of 241.7, leaving Army's Yashwant Singh in silver medal position with a score of 237.7. Yashwant's teammate Omprakash Mitherwal won bronze, securing 218.0 in the finals.
Earlier this year, the 23-year-old Meerut shooter won gold medals at the Commonwealth Shooting Championships and at the 10th Asian Airgun Championship in Japan as well.
In NSCC, he beat a 568-strong field contingent, including the likes of Jitu Rai, who finished sixth in the final. Jitu, however, won the team event for his third gold of the tournament. His teammates were Mitherwal and Dharmendra Singh.
In the Junior Men's 10m pistol final, Anmol Jain of Haryana won gold in a new finals national record score of 244.1. Saurabh Choudhary of Uttar Pradesh and Pankaj Yadav of Border Security Force (BSF) won silver and bronze medals, with scores of 238.8 and 218.6 respectively. The junior event also had a field of 314 entries.
A total of 4,800 men and women shooters from across the country participated in the tournament, including 200 wildcard entries.