Chinki Yadav secured the second quota for Tokyo Olympics in women’s 25m Pistol event on Friday as she got qualified for the finals at the ongoing Asian Shooting Championship in Doha, Qatar.
Asian Shooting Championship
The 21-year-old 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. She will now be having her eye on the medal.
Chinki, who has so far bagged eight junior national and world championship medals in her career spanning over eight years said, “I feel like I am floating on cloud nine. It is my best ever performance.”
Her coach Jaivardhan Singh said, “The qualification score of 588 is considered extremely good at the international level. She has a bright chance to clinch a medal at Tokyo 2020 Olympics in the event (Olympic World Record score in the event is 596).”
Chinki Yadav fires Tokyo Quota Place
Her father Mehatab Singh Yadav recounted, “My daughter has nurtured a dream to be an ace shooter since her childhood. She wants to win gold at the Olympics. I allowed her to join the summer camp organized in MP Shooting Academy in 2011 when she was in the ninth standard. She won a medal (bronze) on her debut at the National championship in 2013 in the 25m pistol event and since then has never looked back.”
Earlier, Rahi Sarnobat had already secured the other quota for India at the ISSF World Cup in Munich. Her score of 37 had helped her beat Ukraine’s Olena Kostevych at the event and take the top spot. The 28-year-old became the first Indian woman to win gold at the Asian Games.
Rahi won the first Olympic quota place that was available to the Indians in this category in Munich with those in the pistol and rifle events being won by Apurvi Chandela, Anjum Moudgil, Saurabh Chaudhary and Abhishek Verma.
Meanwhile, Sarnobat and Manu Bhaker, who have both sealed their Tokyo quotas had scored a solid 589 and 584 respectively in the MQS category. Chinki’s qualification is the 11th quota booked in shooting by the Indians for Tokyo 2020.
