It was double delight for the father-son duo from Andhra Pradesh, as Darius Chenai emerged champion amongst senior trap shooters and Kynan Chenai won the title in the junior event at the National Shooting Championships in Jaipur on Tuesday.
At 46, Darius pipped old warhorses like Anwar Sultan and Mansher Singh to claim his maiden national title with a score of 141 (118 + 23).
Anwar and Mansher, who were ahead of Darius after the qualification round, could not match the fine form of the Andhra shooter.
Anwar and Mansher were tied at 140 after the final, but Anwar grabbed second place when Mansher missed the second bird in the tie-breaker.
Mansher, who was halted due to bad light overnight, was leading with 121 in the qualification round with Anwar (120) and Darius (118) close on his heels.
In the final, Darius was superb, shooting 23 out 25 birds while Anwar hit 20 and Mansher 19 in slightly fading light.
"I was not sure that I had won and I was not even aware of the margin. Mansher has been "guru" and Anwar is so experienced that to pip them for my maiden title is unbelievable," Darius said after the final.
"It is a totally different feeling at this age to win your maiden title and to think that I started rather late."
"A stint with Italian Coach Marcello Dradi at Raninder Singh's range at Patiala made all the difference, though I have been taking tips from Mansher," said Darius.
"It is double delight for me because my son Kynan has won the junior title," added the elated father.
Kynan said he was more pleased for his father.
"I have seen him shooting better but not in the finals. He has been coach and I learnt a lot of things from him. It is great to see him bag this honour," said Kynan, who also won the gold at the Pune youth Commonwealth Games in October.
"We both were practicing together at Patiala, where Italian coach Marcello, who is also my personal coach, helped us out, said Kynan.
Kynan was clearly ahead by five points to emerge champion with 111 while the second place went to Gyanchand Sharan Susheel of Karnataka, who had a final score of 106.
The third position was grabbed by Rayyan Rizvi (UP), who had 104.
The team title went to Uttar Pradesh,k who totaled 43, while Punjab (328) and Andhra Pradesh (325) grabbed second and third places respectively.
Though the Rajasthan shooters were not able to go through the finals, four of them were rewarded with an import license as they had shot over the cut.
Prithviraj Singh (107), Giridhar Pratap Singh (95) Biramdev Singh (93) and Sohail Khan (80) in the juniors made the cut to get the nod import license for gun and pellets.
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