By Kumkum Khansuli
DEHRADUN, 1 Feb: In shooting, the 10m Mixed Team air rifle finals took place at the Trishul shooting range MPSC. Punjab’s Ojasvi Thakur and Arjun Babuta took the Gold while Arya Borse clinched the second Silver, for Maharashtra with Rudrankksh Patil. Ojasvi Thakur when asked about winning a national championship at sucb a young age said, “‘ I don’t think age matters at all. Anyone can shoot well if they have the right techniques and mental strategies”. She told Garhwal Post the she felt great with the event and learned a lot. Thakur has previously participated in international event Junior World Championship as well.
Arya Borse on her second Silver said that she tried hard to get the Gold. However, she is happy bringing 2 Silvers to the state’s total tally.
The Bronze is taken to home by Ismita Bhowal and Abhinav Shaw of West Bengal.
The Wushu Finals were witnessed at the Kanchanjunga Hall. Wushu, a kind of Marshal Arts, being mainly of two types- Taolu, the demonstrative type and Sanda, where 2 players fight each other for victory.
Neelam Chaudhary from Rajasthan, Shreya Kumari and Geeta Xalxo from Jharkhand took the Gold, Silver and Bronze home, respectively in the female category of Taolu’s ‘Nangun’ variation while Muhammad Jasil.K from Kerela, Surojeet Sardar from Delhi and Kartik Thapa from Uttarakhand scored gold silver and bronze, respectively.
The winner of the ‘Qiangshu’ variation are Yumlembam Echantombi Devi from Manipur and Aditya Kumar from SSCB for Gold. Followed by Bhooraksha Dubey from Madhya Pradesh and Bhanshu Singh from Uttarakhand Pradesh stood in second with Silver. And the Bronze was kissed by Divya Choudhary and Bhanu Pratap Pareek from Rajasthan.
Sanda, the second type was conducted in eleven weight category for males and eight for women where notable sportspersons like Surya Bhanu Pratap Singh, Suraj Yadav, Abhishek Tanwar, Twinkle Bhandari, Shrutri Sarwaiga have stood with prominent medals.
Nikita Bansal, the 65kg female Gold achiever. In an exclusive interview, when asked about the last Olympics where India couldn’t win Gold (Wushu is not a game inclusive in Olympics yet) how does the domestic games carve sportspersons for international games like Asian Games and what do you think about including it as one of the competitive games in Olympics? To which she replied that- ‘ Wushu is one of the games that bring India the highest number of medals in international combat games. If included in Olympics, medals are confirmed’. She said that she herself looks forward to participate in it. Bansal has already brought 4 international medals to the country and it was her 6th national medal. She hails from Rajasthan and her father has a business of building materials. She mentioned that a supportive surrounding of family, friends, coaches is necessary and she is blessed to have that.
