67th National Shooting Championship: Suruchi sweeps women’s, juniors and youth gold medals in air pistol

67th National Shooting Championship: Suruchi sweeps women’s, juniors and youth gold medals in air pistol

Suruchi Phogat was a class act as she swept the women’s, juniors and youth gold medals in air pistol, after topping qualification with 585, in the 67th National shooting championship at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Friday.

It was an incredible show of authority by the first-year student of Government College in Birohar, Haryana, who has been training with coach Suresh Singh for the last two years.

The last time a shooter captured all the three gold medals was in 2018 when the then 13-year-old Esha Singh outclassed the field in three sections at the National championship in Thiruvananthapuram.

“I was well prepared and was confident of winning all the three gold medals,” said Suruchi with a disarming smile.

It was not a new experience for Suruchi to win National medals, as she had won a gold in juniors, apart from silver in the women’s and bronze in the youth section in the last edition.

This time around, Suruchi won the women’s gold with a 5.5 point margin over Olympian Rhythm Sangwan, while Krushnali Jagat Singh Rajput won the bronze.

Asian Games gold medallist Palak Gulia finished sixth, after having qualified with a score of 577.

In the junior final, Suruchi beat Sainyam by 3.3 points for the gold, while Rhythm stayed ahead of Sanskriti Bana and Palak for the bronze medal.

In the youth section, Suruchi shot her best score of 245.5 to beat Sanskriti by 6.3 points for the gold, while Palak salvaged some of her reputation with the bronze.

It was a commendable exercise that Suruchi stayed focused right through the three finals that spanned about three-and-a-half hours in the evening. With the team gold medals to boot, Suruchi took her overall tally to six.