With best score in skeet trials, Smit seals World Cup spot

Smit Singh extended his form into day two of the skeet trials and finished with a top score of 122, scoring 25s with each of his last three rounds and sealing his place in the Indian skeet team for the shotgun World Cup in Mexico next month. PPS Guron too finished with a perfect last round to finish below Smit on 120 — Guron could have surpassed that mark had he not lost focus on the fifth station in round four.

Smit looked in control right from the start of the fourth round and showed no nerves at any point, coming back strongly after missing three targets on Tuesday. Experienced shooters Allan Daniel Peoples and Mairaj Khan looked rusty and managed 118 each. Peoples missed two targets on station four and one on the eight in round four while Mairaj squandered twice on stations two and four in both rounds.

Arosepal Sandhu looked a touch better than he did on Tuesday to finish his rounds with identical scores of 23. Sheikh Sheeraz missed three targets in round four but made amends in the fifth round to score 114. Although both Sandhu and Sheeraz are likely to make the World Cup team, they occupied the bottom places in Wednesday's group of six.

Smit kept his technique simple. "There was no pressure but I wanted to better my national performance of 119," said the 22-year-old. "For that I was focusing hard, and sometimes isolated myself from others during the round so that no negative thought could disturb my concentration."

With the World Cup scheduled to take place with new skeet rules, Smit says that plenty of hard work remains to be done. "There is hardly any time left for the World Cup. The trials were according to the old rules. I still feel that, sometimes, the anxiety to score more spoils the round and I miss one or two birds. So with new rules, I will have to cope up fast with the speed and I need to work on my mental approach," Smit said.

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