Faridabad, Mar 14 (IANS): India's top para-shooters Manish Narwal and Avani Lekhara opened the 2021 season with gold medals at the first National Shooting Championships here on Saturday.

Narwal and Lekhara, both of whom have secured quotas for India for this year's Tokyo Paralympic Games, displayed dominant show and emerged victorious in multiple events including their pet events -- P1 10m air pistol men SH1 and R2 10m air rifle women SH1.

Among other top names who were in action last week were Singhraj (Haryana) and Akash Akash (Uttar Pradesh), who took the bronze medal in mixed team 50m pistol SH1 event along with Narwal at the Sydney 2019 World Shooting Para Sport Championships; Osijek 2019 World Cup medallists Rahul Jakhar (Haryana) and Mahavir Swaroop Unhalkar (Maharashtra) etc.

In a thrilling contest, Narwal representing Haryana defeated Singhraj for the gold in 10m air pistol men SH1 with both the shooters getting 577, including 18 inner 10s.

The same result followed in the 50m air pistol mixed SH1 with Narwal and Singhraj taking the 1-2 positions with scores of 545 and 542, respectively. Jakhar was the bronze medallist with 524.

Overall Narwal took three gold medals to his name in the P1 men's 10m air pistol SH1 (junior and senior) and the P4 mixed 50m pistol SH1.

As many as 217 para shooters from 19 states participated in the first-ever National Championships organised by Sports Technical Committee, Para Shooting under the aegis of the PCI last week.