(Changwon, South Korea): Indian rifle shooters Anjum Moudgil and Apurvi Chandela today became the first set of Indians to secure a berth for Tokyo Olympics. Moudgil, 24, won a silver medal in women’s 10m air rifle event of the ISSF World Championship, which is considered the “Mother of all shooting competitions”.
The Korean continued their domination in shooting events as Hana Im (251.1) won gold medal and her countrywoman Eunhea Jung(228) won bronze medal.
Moudgil who specializes in women’s 50m rifle 3 positions event shot a total of 248.4.
Another Indian in fray was multi times Commonwealth Games medallist and 2018 Asian Games bronze medallist Apurvi Chandela who finished fourth in the same event with a total score of 207. She also sealed an Olympic berth.
The prestigious ISSF world championships will offer 60 Olympic berths across 15 events.
Men’s 10m air rifle event
The event was once spearhead by Olympic medallists in Abhinav Bindra and Gagan Narang but after the retirement of Bindra and the lack of form of Narang the baton had shifted to Deepak Kumar and Ravi Kumar.
Deepak recently ended the title drought after winning the silver medal in men’s 10m air rifle event at the 18th Asian Games. Continuing his good form he qualified for the finals here in the ISSF World Championship but ended at 6th position in the finals with a total of 164.1 and failed to bag an Olympic berth. However, there will be several other occasions where a shooter will get another shot at the Olympic qualification.
Olympic silver medallist and European champion KAMENSKIY Sergey of Russia claimed the top honour followed by Gorsa Petar and Maricic Miran of Croatia.
National Rifle Association of India’s(NRAI) verdict
The National body will take the final call on selection of the shooters, based on the aggregate scores of shooters in international tournaments and selection trials in pursuit to the 2020 Olympics. Hence their qualification is not really permanent and they have to battle it out in the next two years with their consistent performance.
