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Three shooters from Pune academy make it to Team India for World Juniors
Elavenil Valarivan, Shreya Agrawal and Manini Kaushik are supported by the Sports Promotion Foundation’s shooters, who will be participating at the world championship for the first time.
Three shooters from the Gun For Glory Academy run by Gagan Narang have made it to the 10M Air Rifle Junior Women Indian squad which will compete in the 52nd ISSF World Championships, to be held in Korea between August 31 and September 15.
Elavenil Valarivan, Shreya Agrawal and Manini Kaushik are supported by the Sports Promotion Foundation’s shooters, who will be participating at the world championship for the first time.
Elavenil, an 18-year-old, had recently won a gold at the International Shooting Tournament in Plzen, Czechoslovakia and ISSF Junior World Cup in Suhl. She shot a 250.8 in the final for a top-of-podium finish in Plzen. Elavenil, who had shot an unprecedented score of 631.4 to register her name in the history books during the ISSF World Cup earlier this year in Sydney, had scored 628 to qualify.
Shreya also had a fine run at the recent International Junior Shooting Tournament in Plzen as the girl from Madhya Pradesh was the only other Indian to enter the final with Elavenil in the Air Rifle Women event.
Manini Kaushik, ranked fourth in the ranking list, replaced Mehuli Gosh in the squad as she is part of the senior team for the upcoming world championship. She has shown her flare at the recently concluded 18th KSS Memorial Shooting Championship where she picked up two medals in individual and team events for Rajasthan.
“This is a proud moment for GFG Academy as for the first time, the entire team of India is from the academy. These three girls started training at the academy three years back and within a short period they have managed to break into the Indian team for the world championship. Their recent performance is significant and they have the ability to beat the strong China team in the tournament,” said Pawan Singh, director of GFG Academy.
While talking about her recent performance, Elavenil said, “The last one year has been of great learning. I worked hard with my coaches and mentors at Gagan Narang Sports Promotion Foundation (GNSPF). I had focused on achieving a level of consistency and all efforts put at Project Leap has helped me immensely as a shooter.”
The selection of the three juniors for the Korea World Championship is strictly on the basis of their cumulative points they have earned during the various international exposure events, including Korean and Munich World Cup, besides the trails held in India before they were picked up.
For the records, there will be as many as nine girls participating in the junior events at the worlds along with 15 boys who will be competing in junior men events in Korea.
