India international Ravi Kumar today became the new national champion in the men's 10m Air Rifle at the 61st National Shooting Championship Competitions (61st NSCC), here.
Ravi, representing the Air Force, capped an extremely successful year, when he won his first international medal at the Asian Airgun Championships and reached three International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) world finals, with a new national finals record en-route to winning the title.
He also won the team gold in the event along with India teammate Deepak Kumar and Manoj Dalal.
Ravi reached the Air Rifle final, shooting 627 in qualification to finish second behind the experienced Sanjeev Rajput of Haryana, who topped qualification with a score of 627.8.
In the eight-man final, Punjab's talented junior Arjun Babuta began strongest with Ravi in hot pursuit.
Ravi edged ahead of Arjun after the 14th shot of the 24 shot final and kept getting stronger to post a score of 251.2 for the national record.
Arjun settled for the silver. His score of 248.9 as well as the bronze medal winner Rajput's 228, both qualified as national final records.
In the other 10m Air Rifle competitions held on the day, Divyansh Singh Panwar of Rajasthan won four golds including the junior men, youth men and junior civilian men individual titles.
Arjun Babuta also won two gold medals on the day, including the individual and team 10m Air Rifle Civilian events.
In the men's 25m Standard Pistol competitions, Adarsh Singh of Haryana won five gold medals on the day including the individual junior and junior civilian events. He also won three team golds to be the day's star shooter.
State-mate Anish Bhanwala, who starred earlier in the Championships with both the men's and junior men's 25m Rapid Fire gold medals, carried on with his good form and picked up a further two gold, one silver and one bronze medal in the Standard Pistol.
A total of 4800 men and women shooters from across the country are participating in the 61st NSCC including 200 wild card entries.
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