Shooters Anjum Moudgil, Apurvi Chandela grab Olympic quota

India's women's 10 metre air rifle shooters Anjum Moudgil and Apurvi Chandela on Monday secured a quota place for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics after their impressive performances at the ISSF World Championships.

Moudgil shot a total of 248.4 points to finish second and bag the silver medal. The 24-year-old fired a 9.8-9.7 combination in her third-to-last series.

Meanwhile, Apurvi aggregated 207 points to finish fourth in the same event. Apurvi was followed by Singapore's Adele Tan Qian Xiu (19), who barely missed the Olympic slot and finished in 5th place with 184.3 points.

South Koreans IM Hana and Eunhea Jung finished first and third with 251.1 points and 228.0 respectively.

Apurvi also won a silver for India in the team event along with Anjum and Mehuli Ghosh in the championship.

Significantly, it was for the first time that India has won two Olympic quotas in a single match.

Commenting on the development, Apurvi said that it is indeed a matter of great pride to represent India in the Olympics.

In the men's 10 metre air rifle event, Deepak Kumar finished sixth with 164.1 points.

In the women's junior trap event, Manisha Keer took a silver medal as she finished with a total score of 41. She lost to Italy's Erica Sessa in a shoot-off, after the two had tied in the lead at the end of the 50-shot final.

With one hit in the shoot-off, Sessa beat Keer (who missed her shoot-off target) and finished atop of the podium with a tally of 41 hits, equalling the world record set in 2017 by Marie-Louis Meyer of Germany at the European Championship in Baku (AZE).

Notably, the 52nd ISSF World Championship is the first shooting sport qualification event for the 2020 Olympics.

A total of 60 berths will be distributed in ISSF for the 15 Olympic events.

--IANS

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