Chinki bags 11th Olympic quota in shooting
NEWDELHI: Chinki Yadav’s father Mehtab Singh Yadav does not hesitate to admit that had it not been for the funding received from the Madhya Pradesh Shooting Academy in Bhopal, his daughter would never have taken up the sport.
Mehtab, an electrician in the same academy, never imagined his daughter, who took up the sport in all seriousness in 2012 as a 15-year-old, would ever represent the country leave aside win a 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games berth.
Chinki shot a career-best qualification score of 588 on Saturday to bag the Olympic quota for the country in 25m sports pistol at the Asian Championships in Doha on Friday. In the final, however, she finished sixth with a score of 116.
Chinki dabbled in many sports, including gymnastics, as a kid before she decided to appear for the summer trials at the MP Shooting Academy in 2011.
“She was selected during the summer trials and from then on her expenses have been borne of by the academy. Shooting is such an expensive sport and I don’t think I could afford it without such support,” says Mehtab, who has two children.
There were still some requirements which Mehtab found a bit tough to fulfil. “I never stopped her from pursuing shooting. Sometimes, I had to buy her shoes and other things and there were financial strain on me, but I have never let her training suffer. She has been performing very well at junior and senior meets. We have never been to a foreign location but I am happy that my daughter is travelling abroad and making her country proud,” he said.
At the academy, she honed her skills under Asian Games champion and current national pistol coach Jaspal Rana. She broke into the senior team this year with consistent performance in domestic competition and trials. She competed in all the four World Cups and has been performing steadily. At the All India Kumar Surendra Singh memorial shooting championships in New Delhi, Chinki beat two seasoned campaigners—Rahi Sarnobat and Heena Sidhu—to win gold.
At the ISSF World Cup in Rio de Janeiro in August-September, she shot 584 in qualification and was placed 10th. On Friday, Chinki bettered her performance to finish second in qualification behind Thailand’s Naphaswan Yangpaiboon (590). Securing a finals berth was enough for Chinki to ensure India an Olympic berth, as four of the eight finalists had already booked their quota places. There were four quota places on offer in the ongoing tournament.
Overall, it was India’s 11th quota for the 2020 Olympics and second in women’s 25m sports pistol. Rahi Sarnobat had bagged the first quota at the Munich World Cup earlier this year.
A maximum of two quota places per event are distributed.