Shooting: Himachal’s Zeena Khitta Continues Purple Patch, Clinches Gold in 10m Air Rifle Event

Himachal’s Zeena Khitta ensured she continued her fine form as she pocketed the gold medal in the 10m air rifle event at the Khelo India Youth Games with a score of 251.3 in Guwahati on Wednesday. Punjab’s Jasmeen Kaur and Sift Kaur bagged the silver and bronze medals respectively.

Khitta took off from her previous performances at the Nationals, where she defeated star shooters Mehuli Ghosh and Apurvi Chandela. “I am feeling great. I am very proud of myself. Everything is going right for me at the moment. The training, hard work, everything is falling into place. We have trials for the Indian team this month. I will be focussing on that now,” Khitta told PTI.

Khitta, 18, has aspirations of becoming the first Indian woman to win an Olympic gold medal. “My biggest dream is to become the first Indian woman to win a gold in the Olympics. For this year, I am aiming to participate in the senior ISSF World Cups and win golds in those tournaments.

“I have played only Junior World Cups so far. I will be trying to book a berth in the Indian Olympic shooting team this year,” said the shooter.

Meanwhile, bronze medallist Sift had decided to take up trap shooting before moving to the 10m air rifle event.

“I started practicing shooting in 2015. My father’s friend’s son, who is a Trap shooter, asked me to start shooting. At that time, I didn’t know about any other event, I thought I’ll take up Trap.

“But, when I went for an open district tournament, I saw participants at the 10m air rifle event. Then I took up 10m air rifle and started enjoying the event. I won my first medal (gold) in an invitational tournament in Jalandhar,” said Sift.