Indian marksman Fahd Sultan won the gold medal at the All India Manav Rachna Open Shotgun competition, pushing Prabhat Kumar and Aryavansh Tyagi to second and third spots respectively in New Delhi on Sunday. (More Sports News)
Sultan, who recently competed in the Asian Championships in Kuwait and is the son of Olympian trap marksman Anwar Sultan, shot 42 out of 50 in the final, while Prabhat scored 37 and Aryavansh 31.
The unique thing about the competition was three top male and an equal number of women trap exponents made it to the six-shooter finals.
The three women shooters who made it to the final were Aadya Tripathi, Bhavna Chaudhdry and Katha Kapoor.
Aadya Tripathi, 22, who has competed in several World Junior Championships in 2021 and 2022, was unlucky to get eliminated in fourth position with a score of 25. She had shot a superb 44/50 in qualification.
"The fact that it was an Open competition, there were no separate categories for men and women, so we competed with the men to enter the finals. The interesting part about today's competition was that four women could have made it to the finals based on the qualification scores.
"But since an equal number of male and female competitors were allowed in the medal round, one of us missed out on a final berth," said Aadya.
Asian Championships gold-medallist shot-putter Om Prakash Karhana said, "The purpose of the competition was to give an equal platform to both men and women shooters."
