Swapnil Kusale bagged the third Paris Olympics quota place for India after finishing fourth in the men’s 50m rifle 3 position final of the ISSF World Championships here on Saturday.
The first quota was won by Bhowneesh Mendiratta in the men’s trap shooting event and the second was claimed by Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil in the 10m air rifle event where he won the gold medal.
Rhythm Sangwan missed a quota place narrowly in the women’s 25m pistol as India also picked up two more medals on the day with a 1-2 finish in the 10m air pistol mixed team junior competition.
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India’s tally in the premier tournament stood at 32 medals, including 12 gold, eight silver and 12 bronze.
Kusale shot 593 in the qualification to make the eight-men final at the second spot, and was also in contention for the gold-medal match too but a poor 8.2 in his final shot in the eighth series dashed his hopes.
China’s Liu Yukun topped the qualification with 596.
India’s Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar was 14th with 589 and Niraj Kumar finished in 19th place with a score of 588.
In the final, Kusale was at the top of the standings after kneeling with a score of 104.8 but slipped to third at the end of the prone stage with his total being 207.9.
Shooting for a place in the gold medal round, Kusale shot a big 10.6 in the 39th shot to bring him up to second, but an inexplicable 8.2 in his 40th relegated him to fourth place and denied him a world championship medal.
Kusale’s 8.2 in the elimination round during the standing stage allowed Norway’s Jon-Hermann Hegg to win the bronze with a 10.1.
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Kusale’s total score was 407.6 while Hegg ended with 407.9.
Ukraine’s Serhiy Kulish beat Poland’s Tomasz Bartnik 16-6 in the gold medal match.
Sagar Dangi and Shikha Narwal pulled off a pillar-to-post victory in the 10m air pistol mixed team junior after topping the 27-team qualification with a combined score of 580 out of a possible 600.
Sagar was particularly good with a score of 295 for his 30 shots. Fellow Indians Esha Singh and Samrat Rana followed them into the gold medal clash with a score of 579. Both the Indian pairs fought tooth and nail in the title-decider but Sagar and Shikha prevailed 17-15.
Germany and China won the bronze in the event.
After shooting 295 to top the precision round of the women’s 25m pistol on Friday, Rhythm Sangwan shot a 292 in the rapid-fire round for a score of 587, which gave her third spot in qualification.
Manu Bhaker missed out logging 583 for a 10th place finish.
Reigning Olympic champion Anna Korakaki came up with a perfect 100 in her final rapid-fire series to claim the eighth and last qualifying position with the same score as Bhaker and German Monika Karsch, who took ninth spot in the 89-strong field.
Abhidnya Ashok Patil, the third Indian in the field, shot 580 to end in 19th spot.
The women’s 3P team competition saw the Indian troika of Anjum Moudgil, Sift Kaur Samra and Ashi Chouksey finish seventh with a score of 868 in qualification stage two.
In stage one, they had shot a combined 1310 to finish seventh among 22 teams to make it to the top eights.
Also, in the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol, India’s Vijayveer Sidhu shot 294 in the first precision round to lie in third place with the second rapid fire round coming up on Sunday, followed by the finals.
Vijay Kumar shot 288 to be in 28th spot while Anish was further back in 54th with a score of 281.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed - PTI)
