Sahadat outguns Shakil to win gold
Sheikh Sahadat Ahmed outshone South Asian (SA) Games gold medalist Shakil Ahmed to clinch gold in the 10m Air Pistol event of the Suzuki 7th National Airgun Championships at the BSSF Shooting Complex in Gulshan yesterday.
Although Shakil Ahmed improved his score in the final to hit 192.2, 4.6 more than his SA Games scores of 187.6 in 50m Pistol event, he could not defeat teammate Sahadat, who won the gold medal with a score of 194.5. Mohendra Kumar Singha won bronze with 171.90.
“That was the result I expected because I fought with the seniors in the 10m Air Pistol event for first time. The big achievement for me is that I had qualified for the final as the number one shooter, so it is not a big deal whether I won gold or silver. I am happy with my performance,” said 21-year-old Shakil, who stunned everyone when he ended Bangladesh's two-decade-long gold drought in the SA Games.
Shakil however admitted that he was a bit under pressure from the beginning as all the focus was on him following his triumph in Assam.
All three medalists are from Army Shooting Association, which also saw their junior shooters dominate the Air Pistol (Junior) event where Anwar Hossain (188.8), Firoz Howlader (182.1) and Sabbir Al Amin (160.7) won gold, silver and bronze medals respectively.
Commonwealth Games silver-medalist Abdullah Hel Baki and SA Games silver-medalist Shovon Chowdhury are not taking part in the Airgun Championship as they will take part in the International Shooting Championships and World Championships to be held in Germany from June 2.
“We may suffer from a lack of confidence if we produce bad results in domestic competitions, so we are skipping this championship in a bid to keep our confidence high ahead of the Rio Olympics in August. The shooters from other top countries also skip domestic competitions ahead of big international events. Now we are only concentrating on the Olympics,” said Shovon, who along with Baki will be taking part in the Olympic Games in Brazil.
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