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Asian shooting: Sarabjot wins bronze, seals Paris Olympics berth
The 22-year-old secured India’s eighth quota spot for the Olympics after finishing third in 10m air pistol at the Changwon continental championships
India opened their account at the Asian shooting championships in Changwon on Tuesday with Sarabjot Singh claiming bronze in the 10m air pistol event. It ensured a quota spot for the 2024 Paris Olympics, India's first berth from pistol events.
India's quota count for the Olympics stands at eight. Swapnil Kusale, Akhil Sheoran (both 50m rifle 3 positions), Sift Kaur Samra (women’s 50m 3P), Rudrankksh Patil and Mehuli Ghosh (both 10m air rifle), Bhowneesh Mendiratta and Rajeshwari Kumari (both trap) are the others who have secured shooting berths. Though the spots are for the country, those who earned them are usually selected.
In the final, Singh shot 221.1 to finish behind China’s Yifan Zhang (243.7) and Liu Jinyao (242.1), who won gold and silver respectively. Asian Championships offer a total of 24 quota places across 12 events, which means the top two finishers in each event are assured of a quota. However, with China having already secured the maximum two quota spots from earlier qualifying events, Sarabjot got the quota spot.
Fresh from his men's team gold and mixed team silver at the Hangzhou Asian Games, Sarabjot squeezed into the final with a score of 581 out of a possible 600. The 22-year-old was tied on points with five other shooters at the eighth spot but had a superior inner-10 count (26), which put him into the eight-man final.
The medal round was much better for Sarabjot, who led the field after the first series but slipped as the Chinese shooters began to assert themselves. He clawed his way back to second after the third series but again conceded the position in the next series shooting 9.8 while the Chinese duo hit the inner 10s.
Malaysia's Jonathan Wong, who was fourth, shot a good fifth series to push the Indian to fourth back he came back in the seventh sequence to edge out Wong by 0.1 point. The result will be a confidence boost for the youngster who has had quite a few fourth place finishes this year. The Bhopal World Cup gold medallist had finished just outside the top three in the Baku and Cairo World Cups and also was fourth in the individual event in Hangzhou.
Sarabjot has struggled with an injury on the right shoulder since the Bhopal competition in March. “The injury developed in Bhopal. It was an impingement injury as my shoulder blade was rubbing against my collarbone causing discomfort,” Sarabjot told PTI.
“It happened over a period. Since we largely perform exercises specific to holding the pistol steady, it weakens the other muscles,” he added.
The other Indians failed to make the final. Varun Tomar (578) and Kunal Rana (577) finished 16th and 17th while Shiva Narwal (576) was 20th and 2018 Asian Games gold medallist Saurabh Chaudhary (569) was 35th.
In the women's 10m air pistol event, no Indian, including those competing only for ranking points (RPO) could make the cut for the final.
Esha Singh and Palak Gulia could not repeat their stellar Asian Games form, finishing 13th and 25th respectively. Rhythm Sangwan was 11th (577), Surbhi Rao 15th (575) and Ruchita Vinerkar 22nd (571).
However, there was some cheer in the junior category. Sainyam won the junior women's 10m air pistol gold aggregating a fine 240.6 points in the final.
