Shardul grabs four gold in sensational show at Shotgun Nationals

NEW DELHI: 14-year old Shardul Vihan of Uttar Pradesh produced a sensational performance as he won four gold on a single day in the 61st National Shotgun Championship on Tuesday.
Shardul won gold in the senior and junior men's double trap individual and team events to completely dominate the day at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range.
Coached by former Asian Championship double gold medalist Anwer Sultan, Shardul turned the tables on current world number one double trapper Ankur Mittal 78-76 in the men's final.
The only blemish for the teenager was in the qualifying rounds of the men's event, where he finished second while losing a shoot-off 8-7 to India international Md. Asab.
Shardul had finished a creditable sixth at the Junior World Championship in Moscow this year.
In the junior men's event, Shardul won 77-74 in the final calculations against fellow teenager and India international Shapath Bharadwaj of Uttarakhand. Sehajpreet Singh of Punjab won the bronze, finishing with 55 in the finals.
Here too, Shardul had tied for the top spot with an identical score of 137, but unlike in the seniors where he had to undergo a four-way shoot-off to determine the top spot, he had only state-mate Ahvar Rizvi to beat and won 7-5.
The team events in double trap were basically an extended story of the brilliant day these two UP teenagers Shardul and Ahvar were.
In the men's team event, Shardul and Ahvar combined with Md. Asab, who won the individual bronze on the day as well with a finals score of 55 behind Shardul and Ankur, to easily win gold with a combined score of 411.
Team Haryana, comprising of Ankur Mittal, Sangram Dahiya and Ajay Mittal, shot 394 for the silver while Madhya Pradesh (MP) won the bronze.
In the Junior men's, team they partnered with Azghar Hussain Khan to shoot a combined 392, way ahead of second placed Punjab (352) and third placed MP (348).
Skeet competitions will commence on Wednesday.