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An epic 40-shot shoot-off, probably the longest seen in national domestic skeet shooting, eventually separated Abhay Singh Sekhon and Olympian Mairaj Ahmad Khan at the national shotgun selection trials 2 here at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range, with the former taking it 20-19, after both tied at 59-hits in the 60-shot final.
Earlier, Olympian Mairaj had topped the qualification round, also by virtue of a shoot-off win, with a tally of 122/125. Abhay, representing Punjab, had made it to the top six--fifth place with a score of 119--going down in a three-way shoot-off for bib numbers to Man Singh, who finished third in the final, as per a press release issued by the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) on Thursday. In the women's skeet selection trials 2, Parinaaz Dhaliwal made it a shotgun sweep for Punjab, winning the final with 53 hits. Just like in the men's final, Uttar Pradesh took second place with Areeba Khan scoring 52 hits, while Ganemat Sekhon made it a second double podium for Punjab on the day with a tally of 42 in the final. In the rifle/pistol trials, Delhi's Paarth Makhija took the men's 10m air rifle T1 trial with a finals effort of 251.3. Olympian Aishwary Tomar was well beaten into second place with 250.9 while the Army's Sandeep Singh was third with 229.7. Qualification was topped by Haryana's Samarveer Singh, who tallied 631.7 over 60-shots. World record holder Sift Kaur Samra was a class apart in the women's 50m rifle 3 positions (3P) T1, recording 462 to ease to victory. Army Marksmanship Unit shooter Priya was second with 459.6, while Maharashtra's Bhakti Bhaskar Khamkar was third with 447.7. Sift's top qualification score of 593, was just three points below the qualification world record. Finally, in the men's 25m rapid-fire pistol T2, Anish Bhanwala yet again brooked no opposition as he demolished the field with a classy effort for the second day running. After winning the T1 a couple of days earlier, the Haryana rapid-fire ace and Paris quota holder shot a supreme 592 to top qualifications by a distance and then shot 31 with three series of perfect 5s in the final to make it two trial wins in two. The final field was almost identical to T1, with new entrant Sameer finishing second with 26 hits and Rajasthan's Abhinav Choudhary third with 22. Udhayveer Sidhu, who was fourth in the final, was second in qualification with a score of 580. (ANI)
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