India won eight medals on competition day two of the Asian Shooting Championship in Qatar on Wednedsay, to add to the five won on day one. But on the other hand, the contingent missed out on at least three possible Tokyo 2020 quota places.
After Wednesday at the Lusail Shooting complex, India’s tally stood at four gold, three silver and six bronze medals for a total of 13 medals so far.
Kynan Chenai stood second in the men’s trap qualification on the day with a solid 122, but in the six-man final with four contenders fighting for the three available Olympic quotas, Kynan placed sixth getting 13 hits in his first 25-shots. Kuwait, Chinese Taipei and Qatar bagged the three quotas.
The men’s trap team of Kynan, Manavjit and Prithviraj did win the team silver medal, their haul of 357, falling six short of team Kuwait who won gold. Manavjit and Prithviraj, finished ninth and 11th with scores of 118 and 117 respectively.
In the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol, Anish Bhanwala finished 11th in qualification with a score of 574 - a poor final series, putting paid to his hopes of bagging one of the four available Tokyo 2020 quotas in the event. In the end, he narrowly missed out to a fellow Thai competitor who finished 10th to 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.
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 junior men’s 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.
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 18th spot 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 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.
Day two’s other Competitions
Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol (After Qualification round)
Adarsh Singh- 14th with 571
Bhavesh Shekhawat - 15th with 571
Women’s Trap(After Qualification round)
Kirti Gupta- 19th with 108
Rajeshwari Kumari- 22nd with 107