Deepak bags quota spot, gold for Manu
Doha, Nov. 5: Birthday boy Deepak Kumar secured India’s 10th Olympic quota in shooting while Manu Bhaker claimed the women’s 10m air pistol gold medal in the 14th Asian Championship here on Tuesday. Deepak gifted himself a bronze medal in men’s 10m air rifle on the opening day of the championship. The Jakarta Asian Games silver medallist shot 227.8 in the eight-man final to finish third on the podium and add to India’s quotas for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Later in the day, 17-yearold Bhaker shot 244.3 to win the top prize in her event. The Haryana sensation, though, had already secured an Olympic quota at the Munich World Cup in May. China’s Qian wang and Ranxin Jiang won the silver and bronze respectively in Bhaker’s event. The other Indian competing in the event, Yashaswini Singh Deshwal finished sixth in the final. The third Indian in the fray, Annu Raj Singh shot 569 for a 20th place finish. The Indian trio claimed the team bronze with a total of 1731, behind Korea and China respectively. Deepak, who turned 32 on Tuesday, qualified for the final in third place after registering a sequence of scores that read 103.1 104.8 104.6 105.0 105.6 103.7, giving him an aggregate of 626.8. Deepak is the second Indian shooter to earn an Olympic quota in the men’s 10m air rifle event after Divyansh Singh Panwar, who secured it in April.
In the women’s 10m Air Rifle, the Indian trio of Elavenil Valarivan, Anjum Moudgil and Apurvi Chandela won the team silver with a combined effort of 1883.2, finishing behind Korea (1891.7). Iran won the bronze.
The tournament is the last chance for shooters to earn quotas for the Tokyo Olympics, slated for next July-August.