Khelo India: Rathore Jr traps gold, Mehuli tops in 10m air rifle

PUNE: A comeback looked an uphill task for Manavaditya Singh Rathore, when he missed three consecutive targets that came from the centre in the second round of his U-21 boys' trap final of Khelo India Youth Games at Shiv Chhatrapati sports complex in Balewadi on Saturday.
Manavaditya is son of sports minister and Athens Games silver medallist in double trap, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and represents Rajasthan.
For the uninitiated, in trap shooting targets fly from left, centre and right in no particular order. Normally, the ones originating from the centre are the easiest to shoot.
From the first 10 rounds of the 50-shot final, Manavaditya had only five shots on target.
Such misses are not easy to deal with, but Manavaditya regrouped to finish the final with 38 in the final, ahead of Haryana's Bhowneesh Mendiratta (34) and Asian Games silver medallist in double trap event, Shardul Vihan (26).
"At the beginning, when you start overthinking, you come under pressure. I couldn't use the pressure well initially. I started focusing more on the scores and calculations than concentrating on my basics and I started missing the shots," Manavaditya said.
When asked how he managed to come back and win the final with a margin of two points, he said: "I either could give up or to get back and take back what was mine. If you train so hard, your conscience doesn't allow you to give up," he told TOI.
Manavaditya had qualified fourth for the final after shooting 116, while Haryana's Lakshay Sheoran topped the qualification with 120 points.
In U-21 girls trap event, Madhya Pradesh's Manisha Keer shot 38 to win gold. She pipped Delhi's Kirti Gupta (35) for second spot, while another Delhi shooter Aadya Tripathi (25) won bronze.
In the U-21 girls' 10m air rifle final, Youth Olympic Games gold medallist Mehuli Ghosh of Bengal missed out on shooting the World Record by 0.3 point as she clinched the top position by shooting 252.1 in the final.
Mehuli got a fight from Gujarat's Elavenil Valarivan, who shot 248.8 for silver, while Rajasthan's Manini Kaushik shot 227 to win bronze. Both Elavenil and Manini train at Gagan Narang's Gun For Glory academy.
In U-21 boys' 25m rapid fire pistol final, it was 1-2 for Haryana as national champion Adarsh Singh shot 30 to win gold, while Ayush Sangwan managed 25 for silver. Maharashtra's Harshwardhan Yadav shot 19 for bronze.