The pair of Maheshwari Chauhan and Anantjeet Singh Naruka, who finished fourth at the 2024 Paris Olympics, rounded off a good year by bagging the Skeet Mixed Team national title for Rajasthan on Wednesday.
In the final played at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range during the 67th National Shooting Championship Competitions, Chauhan and Naruka pulled off a tight 44-43 victory over Mairaj Ahmad Khan and Areeba Khan of Uttar Pradesh. Punjab’s Ganemat Sekhon and Abhay Singh Sekhon won bronze.
Earlier in the day, three 25-shot round totals of 72 and 71 by Chauhan and Naruka respectively, ensured their path to the gold medal match as toppers of the seven-team qualification round.
Three teams – Ganemat and Abhay, Haryana’s Ishaan Libra and Raiza Dhillon, and Mairaj and Areeba, finished on the same tally of 141 after which the Uttar Pradesh duo won a three-way shoot-off by blasting eight targets on the trot, to earn a right to shoot for gold.
Chauhan and Naruka shot a confident final and were leading throughout the six series of eight birds per team decider, but lapses in concentration and a nerve-wracking caution to Chauhan for overshooting her shot time, made it closer in the end than it was.
In the junior skeet mixed team event, it was Madhya Pradesh that stunned Haryana to bag gold, when their pairing of Jyotiraditya Singh and Mansi Raghuvanshi outgunned Ishaan and Sanjana Sood 4-2 in a shoot-off after both teams had tied at 40-hits a piece out of the regulation 48 targets.
Telangana's Munek Battula and Zahra Deesawala won bronze, getting the better of Rajasthan's Yaduraj Singh and Yashasvi Rathore 42-36 in the battle for third place.
