It was yet another day of near misses for India as Omkar Singh in Men’s 10m Air Pistol, Saniya Sheikh and Arti Singh Rao in Women’s Skeet made it to their respective finals but failed to win a quota at Asian Olympic Qualifying Competition for Shooting.
On the other hand Malaysia and Saudi Arabia bagged their first quota each in shooting for the upcoming Rio Olympics.
Besides Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, the third available quota on the penultimate day was won by Japan who also won their fifth gold medal of the competition.
The best performance of the day for India came in the women’s skeet where youngster Saniya Sheikh finished fourth after losing out to Korea’s Kim Minji 11-14 in the bronze medal match. “I am disheartened because we were going for the gold and both Arti and myself have been shooting 14 regularly in training,” Sania said after the event, referring to the 10 both Arti and herself shot in the semi-final round. She eventually won a shoot-off which also had Arti in it, to qualify for the bronze medal match which she eventually lost to Kim.
The gold and the only available quota in the event was won by Japan’s Naoko Ishihara who defeated Thailand’s Nutchaya Sutarporn 13-9 in the match for the yellow metal.
In the Men’s 10m Air Pistol, Omkar qualified for the finals with a score of 577. Three of the eight shooters in the final were not eligible to win a quota as either their country had exhausted their maximum limit of two quotas or the shooters were already quota winners. Omkar started off well with a score of 10.3 in the 20 shot final, but a disappointing 7.9 in the 8th shot meant that he got eliminated after the 10th shot, taking 7th position.
To his credit, it was the second successive final for Omkar, following the fourth place in 50-metre free pistol, but it had to be admitted that there was nothing at stake then, as India had already won maximum possible two Olympic quota in the event through Jitu Rai and Prakash Nanjappa.
The two available quotas in the event went to the gold medallist from Malaysia Guanjie Wong and silver medallist from Saudi Arabia Atallah Alanazi. Kim Jong Su of North Korea won the bronze.
The Results:
Men’s 10m Air Pistol: 1. Guanjit Jonathan Wong (Mas) 198.7 (578); 2. Atallah Alanazi (KSA) 198.3 (581); 3. Kim Jong Su (PRK) 176.9 (577); 7. Omkar Singh 94.6 (577); 20. Aman Pathania 570; 25. Jitendra Vibhute 568. MQS: Gurpreet Singh 582; Prakash Nanjappa 573.
Women’s Skeet: 1. Naoko Ishihara (Jpn) 13 (14) 72; 2. Nutchaya Sutaporn (Tha) 10 (11)4 (70); 3. Kim Minji (Kor) 14 (11)3 (68)1; 4. Saniya Sheikh 11 (10)6 (68)2; 5. Kwak Yu Hyun (Kor) 10(5) 70; 6. Arti Singh (10)1 (69); 16. Rashmee Rahtore 61. MQS: Maheshwari Chauhan 65.
