Young Manu Bhaker, Heena Sidhu clinch gold at KSS shooting meet

New Delhi [India], July 31 (ANI): Indian pistol shooter Manu Bhaker registered a sterling double even as Olympian and former World number one Heena Sidhu won the Women's event with consummate ease at the XVII Kumar Surendra Singh (KSS) Memorial Shooting Championship here on Monday. The 15-year-old from Haryana, on either side of Heena's Gold medal, posted victories in both the Women's 10M Air Pistol Youth and Junior competitions. 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-woman line-up into Monday's final, started strongly for a wire-to-wire effort. Representing ONGC, she shot 238.9 in the final while Malaika Goel of Haryana managed 238.6 to finish in second place. Nivetha 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, Malaika Goel 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 Malaika Goel who had to be contended with the day's second Silver after scoring 236.2. Harshada Sadanad 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 Tanu Rawal ensured a clean sweep of medals for Haryana claiming bronze with a score of 211.2. The XVII KSS Memorial Shooting Championship 2017 will conclude on Tuesday, 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.(ANI)