Indian shooters Arjun Babuta and Tilottama Sen earned two Paris Olympic quota places by clinching silver medals in the men’s and women’s 10m air rifle events respectively, at the ongoing Asian Championships in Changwon, Korea on Friday.
The 24-year-old Babuta also helped the team which included Divyansh Singh Panwar and Hriday Hazarika to clinch the gold medal with an aggregate score of 1892.4.
Babuta became the ninth Indian shooter overall to clinch an Olympic quota place.
“I don’t remember the last time I was this happy. It has been a calculated, planned team effort with all the coaches, psychologists and everyone from Pierre, Thomas and Suma (Shirur) ma’am all getting together. We visualised this and now the effort will be on getting better- a lot of things still need to be improved,” Babuta said.
The 15-year-old Tilottama followed suit as she shot a total of 252.3 in the women’s final to fetch the 10th Olympic quota place for India.
Tilottama narrowly missed out on the gold as she finished behind Kwon Eunji of Korea, who shot 252.4. Her compatriot Ramita Jindal bagged the bronze with an effort of 230.6.
“I had lots of issues in qualification today and to overcome that come up with this result. Yes, I would say I am satisfied,” Tilottama said.
She had qualified in fourth place among contenders with a score of 630.5, while Ramita shot 629.5 to take the seventh qualifying spot.
In the final, Tilottama started the strongest of the two Indians, but there was a point when Ramita was looking to lead an Indian 1-2 finish. That changed after the 22nd shot when a 9.9 from Ramita enabled Korean Eunji to get in to the top two and Ramita found herself bowing out in third.
Indian shooters have bagged seven quota places in rifle, two in shotgun and just one in pistol. Three of those quota places have come from the ongoing continental championship.
Indian shooters sweep skeet mixed team events
India had a remarkable day at the Asian shooting championships, securing six medals to boost their overall count to eight gold, seven silver, and four bronze medals. Anant Jeet Singh Naruka and Darshna Rathore won gold in the senior skeet mixed team event after a thrilling 10-shot shoot-off and a victory over Kuwait’s Abdullah Alrashidhi Eman Al Shamaa. In the junior skeet mixed team, Harmehar Lally and Raiza Dhillon captured gold by topping the qualification round and defeating China in the final. India still has opportunities to secure seven more quota places in the remaining five days of competition. Angad Bajwa and Parinaaz Dhaliwal finished ninth, while Rituraj Bundela and Sanjana Sood came in fourth.