Clinical Heena Sidhu Clinches Rio Quota on Day One of Asia Olympic Shooting Qualifiers


Days Other Four Quotas Distributed between Korea, Thailand, Iran and China

New Delhi, January 27, 2016: Joint world record holder and former world number one HeenaSidhu won the Women’s 10M Air Pistol Gold and in the process a ticket to the upcoming Rio Olympics, on day one of the Asia Olympic Qualifying Competition for Shooting being held here at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range. Given the expectations and pressures of performing in front of a home crowd, Heena’s was a clinical performance considering she topped her qualifying round as well with a top quality score of 387. In the finals she finished with a score of 199.4 to beat Chinese Tapiei’s world number 11 Tien Chia Chen who won the Silver with a score of 198.1. Yun MiGim of Korea won the Bronze. The second quota of the event went to Iran’s GolnoushSebghatollahi who finished fourth but the fact that both Chines Taipei and Korea had exhausted their quotas in the event worked to her advantage.

What made the performance even better was the fact this was her third international Gold in five months. Heena had won the same event at the 8th Asian Air Gun in September at the same venue and then did an encore in Kuwait at the Asian Shooting Championships which was originally going to be the Asian Olympic qualifiers before Kuwait was suspended as a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the status of the event withdrawn a day before it began. It is to her immense credit that she recorded her hat-trick here as shooting athletes are known to peak at spaced out intervals.

In the eight woman final, once the Iranian girlElhamHarijani became the first to be eliminated and Singapore’s Xiu Hong Tehthe fourth, it became clear that one of the two quotas in the event would go to India. But Heena did not let that affect her and shot consistently to win Gold.

In the day’s first final, the Men’s 50M Rifle Prone, Korea’s London Olympics Silver medalist Jonghyun Kim clinched the Gold and a Rio berth finishing with a score of 206.3 in the finals. He had qualified in second position with a score of 625.1. The second quota in the event went to AttaponVeaAree of Thailand who won the Silver with a score of 206.1 after qualifying in fourth position with a score of 623.4. SwapnilKusale of India was the best finisher among three Indians in the event, ending with a score of 617.2 to finish 14th. SushilGhalay finished 17th while Surendra Singh Rathod ended up in 24th position.

Japan’s Yukie Nakayama, who already had a Rio quota in the event, won the Gold in the Women’s Trap event beating China’s Qingnian Li in a scintillating shoot-off in the Gold medal match up. Both women tied with 12 points after the regulation 15 shots, with the Chinese girl eventually missing her 17th shot to hand Yukie the Gold. Qingnian however won the only available quota in the event along with the Silver medal. Fang Cheng of China beat Sarah Alhawal of Kuwait (shooting as an International Shooting Participant) to win the Bronze. India’s Shreyasi Singh missed out on the finals after losing a shoot-off with three other women, two of whom would have made the finals.

In the two other events of the day, India’s Vijay Kumar was lying 7th after stage one of the Men’s Rapid Fire Pistol event with a score of 285. Neeraj Kumar shot 279 to lie 13th and Harpreet Singh logged a score of 278 to lie in 16th position. The second stage and the finals of the event are scheduled for tomorrow. Eita Mori of Japan was leading the first stage with a score of 289, while Sergey Vokhmyanin of Kazakhstan lay second with a score of 288. Yong Hoo Choi of Korea was in third position with a score of 287.

On day one of the Men’s Trap event, India’s quota hope Manavjit Singh Sandhu had an ordinary day by his standards shooting 23 and 22 out of a possible 50 to lie in 26th position. However there are 75 more shots to go and four quotas up for grabs in the event, so he can be expected to catch up on day two. PrithvirajTondaiman of India though was in a creditable second spot shooting scores of 24 and 25 to end one behind Maxim Kolomoyets of Kazakhstan who did not miss any of his 50 shots. DhaherAlaryani of UAE lay third with a score of 49 as well. The semi-finals of the event are scheduled for 3.05 pm tomorrow while the finals of the Men’s Trap will start at 3.45pm on Thursday.

The second final of Thursday is the Men’s 25M Rapid Fire Pistol which will start at 1.30pm Indian Standard Time.