New Delhi, May 9 (IANS) Olympian Anish Bhanwala, representing Railways, clinched the gold medal in the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Men event at the 24th Kumar Surendra Singh Memorial Shooting Championship, being held here at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range.

Anish shot 31 in the final to secure the top spot on the podium. Madhya Pradesh’s Suraj Sharma claimed the silver medal with 28, while Punjab’s Vijayveer Sidhu took bronze with 25 after a shoot-off.

Uttarakhand’s Ankur Goel finished fourth with 20, followed by Rajasthan’s Bhavesh Shekhawat in fifth with 17, Navy’s Omkar Singh in sixth with 11, Haryana’s Gourav Gupta in seventh with 7, and Delhi’s Harsh Gupta in eighth with 6.

In qualification, Ankur Goel topped the field with 583-23x, narrowly ahead of Suraj Sharma, who also shot 583, but with 14 inner tens. Anish qualified third with 582, while Harsh Gupta was fourth with 581.

Vijayveer Sidhu secured fifth with 580, Omkar Singh was sixth with 578, Bhavesh Shekhawat finished seventh with 577, and Gourav Gupta took the eighth and final qualification spot, also with 577.

In the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol junior men event, Madhya Pradesh’s Suraj Sharma emerged victorious in the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Junior Men final, clinching gold with a score of 28. Haryana’s Sameer Gulia secured the silver medal with 27, while Chandigarh’s Unish Holinder claimed bronze with 20.

Rajasthan’s Abhinav Choudhary finished fourth with 17, followed by West Bengal’s Sagnik Banerjee in fifth with 11, Andhra Pradesh’s Mukesh Nelavalli in sixth with 7, BSF’s Chandra Raj in seventh with 6, and Delhi’s Aditya Verma in eighth with 4.

In qualification, Suraj Sharma topped the junior field with 583-14x. Abhinav Choudhary qualified second with 580, while Mukesh Nelavalli was third with 574. Sameer secured fourth with 569, followed by Sagnik Banerjee and Chandra Raj, both on 567. Unish Holinder qualified seventh with 566, while Aditya Verma took the final qualification spot with 565.

–IANS

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