Doha: Qatari skeet shooters led by Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah (pictured), who is aiming to qualify for a record seventh Olympics, will begin their Olympic quota quest today in the 14th Asian Shooting Championships.
Besides Nasser, Masoud Hamad, gold medallist at the 2002 Asian Games and Rashid Saleh Al Athba will be gunning for the Olympic quota at the Losail shooting range in the indivudual men’s event.
Nasser, the 2012 London Olympic Games bronze medal winner, who is also a three-time Dakar rally winner said his preparation for the ongoing Championships has been on the right track.
“The preparation has been good. It is the last competition for the Asian shooters to get the Olympic quotas for the Tokyo Games. There are three (Olympic) quotas in skeet. We will try to do our best in the Asian championship,” said the 48-year-old.
The ace shooter said shooting at a home event will be an advantage but emphasised that a lot of effort is going into preparing oneself for the event.
“‘It is totally different because to qualify for your seventh Olympic Games you need to work very hard. The good thing is that the competition is being held in Qatar and on our shooting range. We will try to do our best,” he added.
“It’s a big ambition for him. I think he would set a few records by making it his seventh Olympics at Tokyo 2020. He has been training and working very hard. We are all proud of him, he has been raising the Qatari flag at Olympics which is a very big thing for us and for all of our shooters,” Ali Mohamed Al Kuwari, the President of the Qatar Shooting and Archery Association, had said about Nasser’s record seventh Olympics bid.
Both the men’s and women’s skeet events are scheduled for today and the finals will be held the next day.
Qatar has already clinched one Olympic quota for next year’s Tokyo Games in trap with Mohammed Ahmed Al Rumaihi opening the account on Wednesday and the hosts of the continental event are added more Olympic quotas to their collections The ongoing Asian Championship is the last event for Asian shooters to clinch the Olympic quotas for the quadrennial event.
In the women’s skeet, 24-year-old Reem Al Sharshani, who finished fifth at the recently concluded Military Games in China, while notching a new personal record of shooting down 118 targets and qualifying for the final rounds, will be keen to clinch the Olympic quota and swell Qatari ranks at the Tokyo Games. Meanwhile, India clinched their second quota for Tokyo Olympics from the ongoing championship.
Yesterday, Chinki Yadav secured the quota in the women’s 25m Pistol event as she entered the finals.
She shot 296 to register a total of 588, finishing behind Thailand’s Naphaswan Yangpainboon, who shot 590 in the qualifications.
On Thursday, she had shot 292 to give herself the chance of securing one of the four available places for next year’s Olympic Games. This was India’s 11th quota in Shooting for Tokyo Games.
