Esha, Vidarsa and Parth notch up wins in national selection trials

Olympian and reigning mixed team pistol world champion Esha Singh was among the three winners on the third day of the national selection trials for Group A Rifle and Pistol shooters, here on Thursday. While Telangana’s Esha won the 25m pistol women T3 competition, Kerala’s Vidarsa Vinod took the 50m rifle 3 positions T4 honours and Maharashtra’s Parth Rakesh Mane won the 10m air rifle men's T4 title.

Esha shot 580 to take third spot in qualifications, but stamped her class in the finals to blow away Maharashtra’s Abhidnya Ashok Patil, who had to settle for silver. Tamil Nadu’s Niveditha Nair came third. Abhidnya, who had topped qualification with a score of 585, was ahead of Esha till the seventh of the 10-series final, but the Olympian finished with two perfect series of five-hits and four-hits in the final series to end with a score of 41.

Abhidnya scored a total of seven points in the final three series to end with 36, while Niveditha exited after the ninth series to take third with a score of 30. In the men's 10m air rifle T4, as is normal in international competitions, the eighth and final qualification berth went at 630.6 after 60 shots.

Two-time Olympian and 3P specialist Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar topped it with score of 633.5, while Parth qualified fourth with 631.9. The winner of the T3 trial, Umamahesh Maddineni, took the early lead in the finals which also featured former world No 1 and world record holder Divyansh Singh Panwar and three others shooters from the Army.

The Junior World Championship medalist Parth was hovering around third throughout the initial stages, but went into joint lead with Aishwary, only after the 16th single shot of the eliminations stage. In the 17th, he took the sole lead and held on after that to take the win, finishing with 251.8.

Aishwary’s chase fell 0.3 short of Parth as he took second, while Umamahesh settled for third place on the day. In the women’s 3P T4 final, Vidarsa got the better of a star-studded field, finishing with 462.7 after 45 shots to edge out Punjab’s former world championship silver medalist and two-time Olympian Anjum Moudgil by 0.3 points. Haryana's Nischal, a World Cup silver-medalist, came third.