Harpal Singh Bedi / New Delhi
Indian marksmen’s wait for the Tokyo Olympics quota place in the 10 m Air Rifle got longer because of their failure to even to make even the cut in this event on the third day of the World Cup Shooting at the Dr Karni Singh shooting range here on Monday.
Two Gold medals and equal number of World records by the Indian shooters had raised the expectations of the fans but they were disappointed as trio of Divyansh Singh Panwar, Ravi Kumar and Deepak Kumar fell by the wayside in the qualification round of the 10m Air Rifle – the only medal match of the day.
Teenager and debutant Divyansh Singh Panwar was placed best with a score of 627.2 for a 12thplaced finish. World Cup medallist Ravi Kumar shot 627 to finish 14thoverall while Deepak Kumar, who shot the first qualification round in the morning, shot 624.3 to finish in 34thplace.
They will have to wait until the next World Cup to earn their quota places for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
Even the Hungarian duo of the seasoned Peter Sidi and Istvan Peni, who won gold in the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions on Sunday, could not clear the qualification hurdle.
In the Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol, Anish, Arpit Goel and Adarsh Singh were placed fourth, 12thand 19threspectively after the first precision round. They go into the Rapid Fire Round Tuesday, before the top six make it to the finals.
In the women’s section Sunidhi Chauhan (1168) and N.Gaayathri(1166) made it through the elimination rounds of the Women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions event and will fight in the qualification rounds on Tuesday.
Reigning world champion and world number one Sergei Kamenskiy of Russia, put behind the disappointment of a Silver medal finish in the 50m Rifle 3 Positions event on to clinch the 10m Air Rifle title..
Kamenskiy in his words overcame the ‘toughest match of his career’, as he struggled throughout the 60-shot qualification round before making a superb late rally to first get into the finals and then sailed through the eight-man medal round in a show of class, leaving behind the Chinese pair of Yukun Liu and Zicheng Hui in Silver and Bronze medal positions respectively.
Kamenskiy ended with a score of 249.4, while Liu shot 247 and Hui 225.9 as the two Tokyo 2020 quotas in the event were picked up by Liu of China and fourth-placed Martin Strempfl of Austria.
Kamenskiy and Hui had already booked their quotas and were therefore not in the race for them.
Hungary and India are still leading the medals tally jointly with two Gold medals each