Manu Bhaker Stars on Either Side of a Heena Sidhu Gold in Women’s Air Pistol at XVII Kumar Surendra Memorial Shooting Championship

New Delhi, July 31, 2017: Haryana’s 15-year old pistol shooter Manu Bhaker, registered a sterling double at the XVII Kumar Surendra Singh (KSS) Memorial Shooting Championship, registering victories in both the Women’s 10M Air Pistol Youth and Junior competitions, even as Olympian and former World number one HeenaSidhu won the Women’s event with consummate ease.

On the penultimate day of the championship being held at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting range in Delhi, Heena, who had topped qualification on Sunday evening with a score of 384 to lead an eight women line-up into Monday’s final, started strongly for a wire-to-wire effort. Representing ONGC, she shot 238.9 in the final while MalaikaGoel of Haryana managed 238.6 to finish in second place. ShriNivetha of Tamil Nadu finished third with an effort of 217.4 in the final.

The performance of the day however, belonged to the young and talented Manu Bhaker of Haryana, who beat quality fields in both the 10M Air Pistol Women Youth and Junior sections to register a double Gold. Among the competitors she beat were recently crowned junior world champion Yashaswini Singh Deswal, MalaikaGoel who won Silver in the Women’s event and India international Muskan.

In the Women’s junior event, Manu shot 239 in the final to beat MalaikaGoel who had to be contend with the day’s second Silver after scoring 236.2. HarshadaSadanad of Maharashtra shot 213.9 to claim the Bronze medal. In the Youth category, she shot 234.9 in the final to beat Anjali Chaudhary of Haryana who shot 232.1 while TanuRawal ensured a clean sweep of medals for Haryana claiming bronze with a score of 211.2.

The XVII KSS Memorial Shooting Championship 2017 concludes on Tuesday, August 1, following which the rifle and pistol shooters move on to the third and fourth selection trials of the year, which will help select the Indian team for the Commonwealth Shooting Championship scheduled for October-November this year in Australia.