SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad Aug 9: Dhanbad shooters, displaying as per their reputation in the 12th Jharkhand State Shooting Championship which concluded at Ranchi’s Ticket Umrao Shooting Range, returned with 14 medals including five gold medals.
Dhanbad District Riffle Association (DDRA) Secretary RS Virdi said that the district team could have brought more medals but the top eight national shooters of Dhanbad did not participate. However, new players displayed their potential and gave the expected result.
The gold medal winners in the state championship were:
- Romanj Dey in women 25 mts open sight rifle
- Yuvraj Singh Virdi in men 50 mts open sight prone junior
- Alankrita Srivastava in women 50 mts open sight prone junior
- Baidyanath Singh in men’s10 mts Air Riffle event and a second gold in 25 mts standard pistol men’-s individual
Four shooters won the silver medal in the championship including:
- Aditya Kumar Yadav (in 50 mts open sight prone junior)
- Yuvraj Singh Virdi (in 50 mts open sight prone)
- Mritunjay Ray (in 25 mts pistol individual)
- Romanj Dey (in 50 mts open sight prone women)
Five of those who won bronze medals are:
- Ekgra Saw (in 25 mts open sight rifle standing junior men)
- Archi Gupta (In 25 mts open sight rifle standing junior women)
- Kumar Dev Ranjan (in 25 mts pistol individual)
- Priya Virdi (in 25 mts women pistol individual)
- Indranil Kumar (in 50 mts open sight prone junior)
District Riffle Association secretary Virdi said the top seven national shooters Ankit Kumar, RS Virdi, Ranveer Dev, Vikash Murmu, Vipul Kumar, Arti Komal and Avinash Kumar of the district did not participate in the state championship to give the opportunity to young players. “So, our medal tally was less than the previous year (2021) this time,” he said.
Virdi further added that most of the shooters are college-going students and due to their studies, they did not get proper practice time.
