December 6: Punjab's Abhinav Bindra today equalled the Asian record in the 10 metre air rifle event missing the world mark by a whisker when he shot an impressive score of 593/600 on the opening day of the 43rd National Shooting Championships here.Bindra's fantastic tally was just one point less than the world record and in the process the Punjab marksman erased his own national record of 588 points, set in the Oceania International Shooting Competitions at Sydney recently.The 17-year-old Bindra shot a perfect 100 in the first card followed by scores of 98, 99, 98, 99, 99 in successive cards to give a thumping start to the championships at Ranjitgarh Rifle Club at Phillaur.Bindra was followed closely by teammate international Chetan Deshmukh of Railways who fired 584 and Praveen Rawat of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and Bharat Singh of the Services with a score of 583 each.Bindra represented India at the Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games in 1998 held at the island resort of Langkawi, Oceania Shooting Championships in Sydney and Commonwealth Shooting Championship in Auckland.In the 25m event, Kamal Singh of CISF was leading with a score of 511 in the rapid fire junior men category, while in the 50m shooting range, Sumresh Jung of Himachal Pradesh was leading with a score of 548 in free pistol event. Both these events will be concluded tomorrow.
