National Shooting Championship: 13-year-old Esha Singh clean-sweep women’s Air Rifle events

Telangana teenager Esha Singh surpassed favourites Manu Bhaker and Heena Sidhu to claim three gold medals at the 62nd National Shooting Championship in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday.

Esha first swept the Youth women’s 10m Air Pistol event before also clinching the Junior Women’s and the Women’s Air Pistol events.

The youngster shot 241.0 m in the women’s 10m Air Pistol final event to finish ahead of the likes of Heena, Manu and Shweta Singh. Youth Olympics gold medallist Manu came second with a score 238.9, while Shweta, who represented ONGC, settled for the bronze with a score of 217.2.

Esha also qualified for the women’s finals finishing seventh with a score of 673 in the qualification round. Manu topped the hit rounds with 578. Former Junior world champion Yashaswani Singh Deswai and Shri Nivetha along with Heena also qualified for the eight-woman final.

But from trailing Manu at one stage, Esha made full use of her gold form to top the podium yet again.

Meanwhile, in the other events if the day army’s  Satyendra Singh won the men’s 50m rifle 3 events with a score of 454.1, while Haryana’s Sanjeev Rajput finished second after scoring 452.5. Parul Kumar of the Air Force claimed the bronze medal.