Chinki bags India’s 11th Olympics quota, but misses medal

Doha, November 8

Chinki Yadav secured India’s 11th Tokyo Olympics quota place in shooting with a career-best qualification score of 588 in the women’s 25m pistol event at the 14th Asian Championship here today. The Junior World Championships bronze-medallist, however, could not replicate her qualification form in the final, only managing a sixth-place finish with a score of 116.

Daughter of an electrician in the Madhya Pradesh sports department in Bhopal, Chinki finished a creditable second in qualification. Annu Raj Singh (575) and Neeraj Kaur (572) finished 21st and 27th, respectively.

“I cannot explain how happy I am. This has been my best performance,” Chinki said. “I would like to credit my coaches, especially Jaspal (Rana) sir for this as well as all those who have supported me including everyone in the Bhopal academy and the NRAI,” she added.

The 21-year-old shot a perfect 100 to finish second in qualification, behind Thailand’s Naphaswan Yangpaiboon (590). Qualifying for the final was enough for Chinki to book an Olympics quota place for the country as four of the eight finalists had already secured their quotas in earlier competitions. It’s the country’s second quota spot in the women’s 25m pistol event after Rahi Sarnobat won the first at the Munich World Cup earlier this year.

Chinki has been doing active shooting since 2012 but this is her first year with the senior national team. Chinki, who is also interested in painting, has appeared in four ISSF World Cups in her maiden year. Her best score in the qualifications before this was 584, which she shot in the Rio World Cup. 

Anjum wins team gold; double delight for Udhayveer 

In other results, the team of Tejaswini Sawant, Anjum Moudgil and Kajal Saini won gold in the women’s 50m rifle prone event with a combined score of 1864.8.

In the men’s 50m rifle prone event, the team of Sanjeev Rajput, Shubhankar Pramanick and Tarun Yadav won silver with a combined score of 1865.1. In the men’s 25m standard pistol event, Udhayveer Sidhu shot 577 to win the individual silver. Udhayveer, Vijayveer Sidhu and Gurpreet Singh won the team gold with a total of 1710.

India continued its dominance in the junior and youth categories by picking up 11 more medals on the day, including six more gold. The country has a total medal count of 35 so far in the competition. — PTI