NATIONAL SHOOTING | Suruchi blazes away to glory with three gold medals

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Unstoppable: Suruchi Phogat with her triple gold in the women’s, juniors and youth sections, along with the team gold medals for Haryana, in
the National shooting championship in Delhi on Friday, December 20, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Kamesh Srinivasan

Suruchi Phogat swept the women’s, juniors and youth air pistol gold medals, after topping qualification with 585, in the 67th National shooting championship at the Dr. Karni Singh Range on Friday.

It was an incredible show of authority by the first year college student from Birohar, Haryana, who has been training with coach Suresh Singh for the last two years.

The last time a shooter captured all the three golds was in the National championship in Thiruvananthapuram, 2018, when the 13-year-old Esha Singh outclassed the field.

“I was well prepared and was confident of winning all the three gold medals,” said Suruchi with a disarming smile.

It was not a new experience for Suruchi, as she had won a gold in juniors, apart from silver in the women’s and bronze in the youth section in the last edition.

This time around, Suruchi won the women’s gold with a 5.5 point margin over Olympian Rhythm Sangwan, while Krushnali Jagat Singh Rajput won the bronze.

Asian Games gold medallist Palak Gulia finished sixth, after having qualified with a score of 577.

In the junior final, Suruchi beat Sainyam by 3.3 for the gold, while Rhythm stayed ahead of Sanskriti Bana and Palak for the bronze.

In the youth section, Suruchi shot her best score of 245.5 to beat Sanskriti by 6.3, while Palak salvaged some of her reputation with the bronze.

It was a commendable that Suruchi stayed focused right through the three finals that spanned about three hours and half in the evening. With the team gold medals to boot, it was a sixer of gold medals for Suruchi.