India’s Manu Bhaker (left) and Xiu Hong Teh of Singapore during the women’s 10m air pistol event at Losail shooting Range yesterday. Pic: Chinthana Wasala/The Peninsula
Two Qatari shooters Rashid Hamad Al Athba and Mohammed Al Rumaihi kept themselves in the race to qualify for the final of the men’s trap event of the 14th Asian Shooting Championship.
At the Losail shooting Range yesterday, Al Athba and Al Rumaihi shot down 71 and 70 targets respectively in the three rounds yesterday to finish in the 4th and 5th place respectively.
Seven other shooters have shot 71 clay targets and share the fourth place with Al Athba while six other shooters besides Al Rumaihi are in fifth place.
Today’s action will see the 53 shooters taking aim at 25 targets in two rounds following which the qualification to the final round will be decided.
Kuwait Naser Meqlad had a perfect score in each of the three rounds shooting down 25 targets each. Kun Pi Yang of Chinese Tapei is in joint second place with India’s Kynan Chenai.
Former World Champion Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Prithviraj Tondaiman, both of India shot identical scores of 71.
Meanwhile, in the team event, Al Athba and Al Rumaihi teaming up with Saeed Abusharib produced a net score of 209 in three rounds and will go into the second day of the qualification lying in the third spot.
Kuwait lead in the team event with a score of 218 followed by India (215).
The next two rounds of the team qualification will be held today morning.
Meanwhile in the women’s trap, Qatar’s Noora Essa Al Ali along with Kholoud Hassan Al Khalaf and Amna Al Abdulla gave something to cheer for the home fans.
Noora is in joint sixth place after shooting down 67 targets out of the possible 75, while Kholoud and Amna are in the 12 and 13 place respectively.
The next two rounds of the qualification will be held today morning followed by the final.
Ray Bassil of Lebanon emerged as the leader after day one with a score of 73 followed by Sarsenkul Rysbekova of Kazakhstan and China’s Weiyun Deng.
In the women’s trap team event, Kazakhstan (208) lead after day one of action followed by Chinese Taipei (207). China and India with a net score of 200 are in third place.
Elsewhere, birthday boy Deepak Kumar secured India’s 10th Olympic quota after winning the men’s 10m air rifle bronze medal yesterday.
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.
Deepak, who won a bronze medal at the 2018 ISSF World Cup in Guadalajara last year, qualified for the eight-man final in third place with a score of 626.8. India has already secured nine Tokyo quotas in rifle and pistol and lies behind China (25 quotas) and Korea (12) in the Asian region, besides the host-country Japan (12 allotted slots), in terms of quotas won.
Deepak, who turned 32 yesterday, is the second Indian shooter to earn an Olympic quota in the event after Divyansh Singh Panwar, who secured it in April.
China’s Yukun Liu (250.5) claimed the gold medal after his incredible performance saw him shoot 10 and above in all the attempts. The silver went to Haonan Yu (249.1), also a Chinese. However, China already has earned two quotas in the same event, so they are not entitled to get any more. A maximum of two Olympic berths can be won by a country per event.
Meanwhile, Manu Bhaker of India claimed the women’s 10m air pistol gold medal.
The 17-year-old Bhaker shot 244.3 to win the top prize in her event. The young India sensation, 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.
In the other medals decided today, Yang Qian of China took gold in the women’s 10m air rifle followed by Tessa Neo Singapore while Jung Eunhea of Korea came third.
