Anjum Moudgil continued her impressive run at the National Shooting Championship in Trivandrum, winning both the individual and team gold medals in the 50-metre rifle 3 positions events.
On day five at the National Games shooting Range, Anjum, representing Punjab shot 457.6 in the final, to overcome Jammu & Kashmir’s Shreya Saksena who shot 452.9 for Silver. Raj Chaudhary of the Army won bronze with a score of 439.5. Having won the rifle prone and mixed team titles earlier, Saturday’s two gold medals made it a total of five.
Moudgil’s current form can be illustrated by the fact that she registered a new national record with a score of 586. More experienced shooters such as Lajja Gauswami (second with 580) of Gujarat and former world champion Tejaswini Sawant (fifth with 578) of Maharashtra followed Moudgil to the finals. The latter led from the start in the finals as well to deliver a commanding performance to clinch the title.
Earlier, her qualifying effort along with that of teammates Dilreen Gill and Avnish Kaur Sidhu got Punjab the team gold as the troika combined for a total of 1730, well ahead of Maharashtra, who took silver with a score of 1714. Kerala won bronze with 1711 on the board.
Shreya Saksena, however, had a fine outing, winning two golds on the day in the women’s junior and junior civilian 3P events. Gill also won her second gold of the day claiming the Women’s 3P civilian championship gold medal.
A total of 4800 men and women shooters are participating in the 61st national championship, which includes 200 wild card entries.