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Double Olympic medallist Manu Bhaker made a strong return to competitive shooting to finish third in the women's 25m pistol at the national selection trials for Group A shooters, in New Delhi, on Monday.
Maharashtra's Rudrankksh Patil and Punjab's Sift Kaur Samra won back-to-back national selection trials for Group A shooters, emerging victorious in the men's 10m air rifle and women's 50m rifle 3 positions T2 matches, respectively.
Both the top international shooters had won the T1 trials at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range on Sunday.
Rudrankksh, the 2022 men's air rifle World champion, shot 253.3 in the final to win comfortably, while Sift was even more dominant, eventually ending with a score of 469.8, 0.2 above her existing world record in the event.
Punjab earned a second title on the day when Simranpreet Kaur Brar claimed the day's third final -- the women's 25m pistol T1 with a score of 36 -- leaving Olympian Esha Singh and double Olympic medallist Bhaker behind in silver and bronze positions respectively.
The day's first decider saw Sift Kaur Samra deliver a virtuoso performance which gave her a third title in a week -- a National Games gold and two trial wins.
She topped the qualifications with a brilliant 595 and then led from the beginning in the 45-shot final to leave fellow Olympian Shriyanka Sadangi of Odisha behind by a huge 4.6 points.
Such was her accuracy that she surpassed her World record score despite a final shot return of 9.9. Telangana's Surabhi Rapole won bronze.
Former World champion Rudrankksh Patil has also been in rousing form in the new season after missing out on the Paris Olympics narrowly, and registered his second trials victory in two days with a mature showing in the men's 10m air rifle.
He was second in qualification with 633.0 to eventual silver medallist Hriday Hazarika of Assam, though only on count-back.
In the final, he was on the money from shot one. A 10.4 to start with, and then he led through all the pit-stops to leave Hriday 1.9 short after the regulation 24-shots. Gujarat's Smit Moradiya won bronze.
After losing in the Olympic trials last year, Punjab's Simranpreet Kaur Brar managed to pull one over the top pistol duo of Manu Bhaker, who won a double bronze at the Paris Games, and Esha Singh, the reigning world air pistol mixed team champion, in the women's 25m pistol T1 selection trial.
The Punjab shooter, who won silver at the 38th National Games last week, began well (with a perfect 5) and ended strongly (4,4,4) in the 10-series of 5-shots final. Another perfect 5 came at the right time in the fifth series but a couple of 2s meant both Esha and she went into the final series tied at 32 hits.
Manu, who had earlier topped qualification with a quality 587, meanwhile had managed to overcome a sluggish start to come back into contention at the back end, but despite a perfect 5 for the ninth series, she fell short of the leaders by one.
The 10th and final series saw Simranpreet close in with 4 hits to Esha's 3, thereby eking out a well-deserved one-point victory.