Manu Bhaker won an Olympic quota for India in women’s 25m pistol alright on Saturday, but missed out on an individual medal the second time running.
The Hangzhou Asian Games and now the Asian Shooting Championship, Manu topped qualification, but flattered to deceive in the final by finishing fifth on both occasions.
At the Asian Games, Manu had finished fifth after topping the qualification (590), but the consolation for the Tokyo Olympian was landing the team gold.
On Saturday, Manu topped qualification again with a score of 591, and seemed to carry the tempo in the final. She was in contention for a top-two finish before a low scoring sixth and seventh series saw her go into a shoot-off with Zhao Nan of China to stay in the final. Manu bowed out but the fifth place was good enough to secure the quota. This was in the light of Iran Tokyo Olympian Haniyeh Rostamiyan, who claimed silver with a score of 36 (584), had already secured a quota and China could claim only one quota.
This is India’s 4th quota at the ongoing competition and 11th overall.
The gold with the other Olympic quota went to China Liu Rui (37) who was placed 9th after registering a qualification score of 584 but made it to the final as fourth placed Yeji Kim (587) of Korea was shooting for ranking points only (RPO) and was not eligible to qualify for the final. Zhao Nan of China 32 (590) took the bronze.
India Esha Singh, who won silver at the Asian Games, finished 17th with a score of 579 while Rhythm Sangwan, who holds the world record (595), shot 576 to finish 23rd. Shooting for RPO, Chinki Yadav (575), gold medallist at the 2021 ISSF New Delhi World Cup, finished 25th.
The trio of Manu, Esha and Rhythm combined for the team silver with a score of 1746 which was 13 points less of the junior team world record (1759) set by the three at the Asian Games.
China won the gold with a score of 1760 while Chinese Taipei took the bronze with 1739.
India other medal of the day came from Ramita Jindal and Divyansh Singh Panwar silver in 10m air rifle mixed team. While Ramita added to the individual and team bronze won on Friday, Divyansh added to the Friday team gold.
Ramita and Divyansh topped qualification with 631.1 to qualify for the gold medal match against the Chinese pair of Han Jiayu and Yu Haonan (630). But the Indians fell short in the final, and the Chinese prevailed 16-12.
The second Indian team comprising of Friday’s Olympic quota winners Tilottama Sen and Arjun Babuta finished fifth with a score of 630.3, but was not eligible for the medal match as only one team from a country can qualify for a medal match.
In the first bronze medal match, the Korean pair of Eunji Kwon and Hajun Park beat Iran Elaheh Ahmadi and Pourya Norouziyan 16-10. Kazakhtan were easy winners in the other bronze medal match with Alexandra Le and Islam Satpayev trouncing Singapore Lindsay Veloso and An Hong Tang 17-11.
India now has 22 medals with 8 gold, 10 silver and 4 bronze.