Heena Sidhu shoots her way to Rio
Indian shooter Heena Sidhu became the ninth Indian shooter to bag an Olympic quota after winning the Gold medal in 10M Women’s Air Pistol event in the Asia Olympic qualifying competition at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, on Wednesday.
After entering the final by finishing first in the qualification round, Heena lead from start to finish in the final to win the yellow metal and the coveted Olympic quota. She clinched the gold in the final by shooting a score of 199.4 to finish above Tien Chia Chen from Chinese Taipei, who shot 198.1.
The World record holder in Women’s 10M Air Pistol has been in scintillating form in last few months winning gold at the Asian Air Gun Championship in India and Asian Shooting Championship in Kuwait, last year.
Yashaswini Singh Deswal and Shweta Singh finished 11th (378) and 12th (378) respectively in the Women’s 10M Air Pistol qualification round and missed out on a spot in the final by two points.
However, India had a disappointing start in the Men’s 50M Rifle Prone event with all three Indians in the fray finishing out of the qualifying spots. Swapnil Kusale (617.2), Sushil Ghalay (616.6) and Surendra Sinh Rathod (615.9) finished in 14th, 17th and 24th in the qualification round.
In the Men’s 25M Rapid Fire Pistol event, 2012 Olympics silver medallist Vijay Kumar kept his hopes alive of a final spot after finishing seventh on the first day of the event with 285 points. With the last round of the event scheduled for tomorrow, the Indian will be expected to continue his good form and enter the final of his pet event.