Harpal Singh Bedi / New Delhi
India narrowly missed out on at least three possible Tokyo 2020 quota places while claiming eight medals on the 2nd day of the Asian Shooting Championship in Lusail, Qatar.
India picked up two gold, two silver and two bronze medals additionally in the Junior Men’s and Women’s 50m Rifle Prone competitions. The country’s tally stands at 13 medals, four gold, three silver and six bronze, so far.
Kynan Chenai came second in the Trap qualification with a solid 122, but in the six-man final with four contenders fighting for the three available Olympic quotas, Kynan finished last getting 13 hits in his first 25-shots. Kuwait, Chinese Taipei and Qatar bagged the medals and quotas.
Two other Indian Trap shooters, Manavjit shot 118 for ninth and Prithviraj hit 117 for 11th place respectively.
The Trap team of Kynan, Manavjit and Prithviraj won a silver medal with their total of 357, falling six short of team Kuwait who won gold.
In the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol, Anish Bhanwala ended 11thin qualification with a score of 574- a poor final series, ended his hopes of getting one of the four quotas in the event. He narrowly missed out to a Thai competitor who finished 10thto pick up the fourth quota place.
The other quotas in the event went to Japan, Korea and Pakistan. China’s world champion Lin Junmin won gold in an event where China swept all the individual medals.
The trio of Anish, Bhavesh Shekhawat and Adarsh Singh won the team bronze however with a combined score of 1716. Korea won silver and China gold.
Their younger compatriots in the junior section of the same event also emulated their seniors, with Ayush Jindal, Ayush Sangwan and Japtyesh Jaspal winning the team bronze.
The pair of Anjum Moudgil and Deepak Kumar made it through the first qualification round of the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team competition shooting a total of 626.2 and finishing sixth out of 36 teams. In the second qualifying stage they finished outside the top four pairs out of the eight competing to reach the gold and bronze medal matches. A combined 415.2 meant they had to be satisfied with sixth position.
The second Indian team comprising of Apurvi Chandela and Divyansh Singh Panwar ended in 18thspot in the same event. They shot a combined 619.6.
Shreyasi Singh in the Women’s Trap did get into a five-way shoot-off for the sixth and final finals qualification spot, however was third best to eventually finish in eighth position. She shot 114 in her qualification round to be the best Indian on show by a distance. A finals spot could have put her in a spot to win a quota as well.
The junior team comprising of Niraj Kumar, Abid Ali Khan and Harshrajsinhji Gohil logged a total of 1845 to win gold ahead of China who won silver and Korea who won bronze. Niraj with his effort of 616.3 also won an individual silver and Abid an individual bronze with 614.4.
The junior women’s prone team comprising of Nishchal, Bhakti Khamkar and Kinnori Konar also won the team gold with a combined score of 1836.3. Here too, China and Korea won silver and bronze respectively. As did Nishchal and Bhakti an individual silver and bronze, for their respective scores of 615.3 and 614.2.
Yuting Ma and Hao Yu of China won the individual golds in both the junior prone competitions.
In other events;
Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol (After Qualification round)
Adarsh Singh (India)- 14thwith 571
Bhavesh Shekhawat (India)- 15thwith 571
Women’s Trap(After Qualification round)
Kirti Gupta- 19thwith 108
Rajeshwari Kumari- 22ndwith 107