Gagan Narang secures 2016 Rio Olympics berth after winning WC bronze

Gagan Narang on Friday won the bronze medal in the 50m Rifle Prone Event of the ISSF World Cup at Fort Benning in USA, earning himself a quota place for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Gagan Narang on Friday won the bronze medal in the 50m Rifle Prone Event of the ISSF World Cup at Fort Benning in USA, earning himself a quota place for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Rifle-shooter-Gagan-Narang-poses-at-Balewadi-in-Pune-in-this-August-2011-file-photo-Satish-Bate-HT-Photo

Narang, who won the bronze in 10m Rifle at the London Olympics, shot 185.8 overall to secure third place behind gold medallist Michael McPhail (208.8 points) of USA and Ole Kristian Bryhn (206.3) of Norway.

The other quota place from the event went to McPhail.

Earlier in the competition, Narang and India's only individual Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra, had failed to qualify for the 10m Rifle final.

Narang is the third Indian shooter to make the Rio cut after Jitu Rai and Apurvi Chandela.

Chandela had secured the quota place by winning bronze in the 10m Rifle at the World Cup in Korea last month.

Pistol ace Jitu Rai had won India's first Olympic quota place at the World Championships in Granada, Spain last year, when he won silver in the 50m Free Pistol event.