new delhi: Asian Games and Youth Olympics gold medallist Saurabh Chaudhary inched closer to a long-awaited Indian team comeback with a third-place finish in the men’s 10m air pistol competition at the national selection trials here on Friday.
On the concluding day of the trials, the 22-year-old Chaudhary finished third on the podium behind Army man Varun Tomar, who won the T2 (trial 2) by shooting 239.8, a comfortable 1.9 points ahead of Paris Olympics bronze medallist Sarabjot Singh, who finished second.
Delhi’s Meenu Pathak delivered the biggest surprise of the day as she upstaged fancied names to clinch the women’s 10m air pistol T2 match with a 243.1 in the final. Besides Chaudhary, another notable event saw Haryana’s latest star Suruchi Phogat taste defeat for the first time since December. Their efforts over the last three months have taken the former to No. 2 in the rankings, while Chaudhary zoomed to top of his event.