Manu Bhaker Picture Credit: Twitter
Ace pistol shooter Manu Bhaker shot a double gold on Friday as she clinched both the women's and junior women's 10m air pistol title at the 20th Kumar Surendra Singh Memorial Shooting event. The 20-year-old native of Haryana shot 263.9 to outclass her opponents in the eight women semi-final event.
Manu Bhaker's compatriot Arshdeep Kaur too fought hard as she followed her opponent to the gold medal contest, but Manu eventually outshot Kaur 16-14 in a closely fought final contest. However, Kaur secured the second spot with a score of 260.5, Haryana's Radhika Tanwar won the bronze.
In the junior women's event, Manu Bhaker was once again in a league of her own as she claimed the top position with a score of 249. Yuvika Tomar from Uttar Pradesh emerged as the best shooter all-around in qualifying, topping both the women’s and junior women’s qualifiers with a score of 584. But, Manu Bhaker outplayed her in the summit clash with a scoreline of 16-12.
The second and third positions were claimed by Yuvika Tomar of Uttar Pradesh and Lakshita of Haryana, who scored 252.7 and 246.7 respectively. While Yuvika had to settle with silver in the junior women's event, she bagged gold after teaming up with Anjali Chaudhary and Devanshi Dhama to seal the team title for UP. Haryana won silver, while Maharashtra claimed the bronze medal. Shikha Narwal won in the youth category where Lakshita picked up the silver.