India has so far won two bronze medals in the competition through pistol ace Jitu Rai and women’s rifle shooter Apurvi Chandela who got direct entry into Rio Olympics 2016. Ace shooter of Indian Army Sub Jitu Rai has won the bronze medal in the 10 meter Air Pistol(Men) with a score of 181.1 points on 8th April. Apurvi Chandela earned India second Olympic quota in shooting notching up the 10 m air rifle(women’s) bronze on 11th April 2015. This evening Olympic bronze medalist Gagang Narang, Sanjeev Rajput and Chain Singh entered the qualification round for the finals of men’s 50 m rifle 3 postition events at the ISSF World (Rifle/Pistol) raising hopes of another 1-2 tickets for Rio Olympics.
The top three competitors in each event in this International Shooting Sports Federation (ISSF), being held at Changwan, South Korea earn direct entry into the respective events of Rio Olympics in 2016. The tournament started on 8th April and will go on until 16 April.
Tuesday 14 April was encouraging as London Games bronze winner Narang returned the best score with a combined total of 1170 for all the three positions of kneeling, prone and standing. Chain Singh was next best with a score of 1167, while Rajput could shoot a total of 1157. Both the qualification and final rounds are slated for Wednesday.
In comparison Monday the 13 was a bad day for India as Heena Sidhu, a former world No. 1 and World Cup and Commonwealth Games medalist, narrowly missed out on making the finals of the women’s 10m air-pistol event on Day 4. Heena was tied with five other shooters on a score of 385 out of a maximum 400, after the end of the qualification round where each shooter has to shoot 40 shots each. She missed out on making the final on a technicality as a result of having shot 11 inner 10s. Shweta Choudhary and Annu Rajsingh were not able to cross the 380 mark in qualification round.
Lajja Gauswami, Elizabeth Susan Koshy and veteran Anjali Bhagwat also missed out on qualification for the finals in the women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions event. Lajja finished 16th with a score of 578, Elizabeth 20th with a total of 576, while Anjali could only manage a score of 566 to end up 57th on the list.