Swapnil on target in 50m rifle prone

Talented junior Swapnil Kusale beat Chain Singh and Gagan Narang to the gold in the men’s 50-metre rifle prone event in the 59th National shooting championship at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Sunday.

The 20-year-old Swapnil was a class act in the climax as he warded off the threat from two of the best rifle shooters who have won Olympic quota place for the Rio Games in prone and 3-position events.

Swapnil, who owes his rapid strides in recent times to coach Deepali Deshpande, said that he was happy with the way he shot, both in the qualification in which he won the junior gold ahead of Ishan Goel and Akhil Sheoran, with 623.8, and the final in the men’s event.

It was the National Games gold medallist Chain who was leading after 16 shots in the final, but Swapnil came up with shots of 10.5, 10.4 to get ahead by 0.9 point, which proved the difference in the end, as both the shooters had the same total of 20.1 on the last two shots.

Chain, trying a new kit, said that he was happy for the youngster and Gagan echoed the sentiments that it would motivate the junior for the future.

In fact, Gagan was happy with his qualification score of 627.2 which was close to his best of 627.8 shot in the World Cup in Fort Benning last year.

He had shot 626.3 on way to the bronze in the Fort Benning World Cup this year, and had shot 626.7 in the Gabala World Cup.

“It is just the beginning of the season. I didn’t have better ammunition. I am getting new rifles. Will be shooting the MQS in the Olympic quota competition next month,” said Gagan.

Defending champion Hariom Singh settled for the fourth place ahead of Ishan, Surendra Singh Rathod and Sushil Ghaley (628.7) who had topped qualification, and Shamsher Singh Bhandari.

Meanwhile, in the 25-metre rapidfire event, after the first stage, Neeraj Kumar and Aksha Suhas Ashtaputre ledwith 291, ahead of Wazeer Singh Rathee (287), Gurpeet Singh (286), HarpreetSingh (285), while Ronak Pandit (283) and Olympic silver medallist Vijay Kumar(282) followed further down the order.