Four Gold Blast by 14-Year Old Shardul Vihan at the 61st Shotgun Nationals

New Delhi, November 21, 2017: 14-year old Shardul Vihan of Uttar Pradesh (UP) turned in a sensational performance at New Delhi’s Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range, winning four Gold medals on a single day in the ongoing 61st National Shooting Championship Competitions (61st NSCC). Shardul won both the senior and junior Men’s Double Trap individual and team events to completely dominate the Shotgun Ranges.

Coached by former Asian Championship double Gold medalist Anwer Sultan, Shardul, who came in a creditable sixth at the Junior World Championship in Moscow this year, turned the tables on current world number one Double Trapper Ankur Mittal 78-76 in the Men’s final. The only blemish for the teenager was perhaps in the qualifying rounds of the Men’s event, where he finished second while losing a shoot-off 8-7 to India international Md. Asab.

In the Junior Men’s event, Shardul won 77-74 in the final calculations against fellow teenager and India international ShapathBharadwaj of Uttarakhand. Sehajpreet Singh of Punjab won Bronze finishing with 55 in the finals. Here too Shardul had tied for top spot with an identical score of 137, but unlike in the seniors where he had to undergo a four-way shoot-off to determine top spot, here he had only state-mate AhvarRizvi to beat and won 7-5.

The team events in Double Trap were basically an extended story of the brilliant day these two UP teenagers Shardul and Ahvar were. In the Men’s team, they ganged up with Md. Asab, who won the individual Bronze on the day as well with a finals score of 55 behind Shardul and Ankur, to easily win Gold with a combined score of 411. Team Haryana, comprising of Ankur Mittal, SangramDahiya and Ajay Mittal shot 394 for the Silver while Madhya Pradesh (MP) won Bronze.

In the Junior Men’s team they partnered AzgharHussain Khan to shoot a combined 392, way ahead of second placed Punjab with 352 and third placed MP with 348.

Skeet competitions are set to commence from Wednesday.