India Book Record 15 Olympic Quotas In Shooting

The Indian shooters helped India create history as India bagged an exceptional 15 Olympic quotas courtesy Angad Vir Singh Bajwa and Mairaj Ahmad Khan’s finish in top two in skeet and the youngster Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar’s bronze medal at the Asian Championship in Doha.

India have so far never won more than 12 Olympic quotas in a single sport. The contingent had booked the highest 12 quota places for the Rio Olympics 2016.

It was the teenager Aishwarya who started the proceedings of the day as he grabbed a bronze in the Men’s 50 m Rifle 3 Positions at the 14th Asian Shooting Championship.

This was Aishwarya’s first appearance at the senior level. The teenage sensation had pipped veteran Sanjeev Rajput, who already has booked the Olympic quota in the same event, in domestic competition to break into the senior team.

Aishwarya, who had created a world record to clinch gold during the Junior ISSF World Cup in Germany, looked in great touch from the start of the event. He shot a total of 1168 to qualify for the finals.

Later in the 8-man final, the 18 year old shot 449.1 to finish third following Korea’s gold medalist Kim Jonghyun who shot 459.9 and China’s Zhonghao Zhao who shot 459.1 to bag silver.

Later on Sunday, Mairaj Ahmed and Angad Bajwa secured India’s 14th and 15th quotas in the skeet final. The two fellow Indians finished in top two at the Asian Shooting Championship.

The Indians were hard to separate as they both finished with a score of 56. The gold and silver medalists were decided by the virtue of a shoot-off in which Bajwa succeeded 6-5 against Mairaj to take the gold.

The Indian contingent continued to impress further as in the 10 m air pistol mixed team event, the team of Manu Bhaker and Abhishek Verma pipped the duo of Saurabh Chaudhary and Yashaswini Singh Deswal by 16-10 to take gold.

The following shooters have been successful in booking quotas for Tokyo Olympic 2020:

1. Anjum Mudgil – 10 M Air Rifle (Women’s Category)

2. Apurvi Chandela – 10 M Air Rifle (Women’s Category)

3. Manu Bhaker – 10 M Air Pistol (Women’s Category)

4. Yashaswini Singh – 10 M Air Pistol (Women’s Category)

5. Chinki Yadav – 25 M Pistol (Women’s Category)

6. Rahi Sarnobat – 25 M Pistol (Women’s Category)

7. Saurabh Chaudhary – 10 M Air Pistol (Men’s Category)

8. Abhishek Verma – 10 M Air Pistol (Men’s Category)

9. Deepak Kumar – 10 M Air Rifle (Men’s Category)

10. Divyansh Singh Panwar – 10 M Air Rifle (Men’s Category)

11. Sanjeev Rajput – 50 M Rifle 3 Positions (Men’s Category)