Swapnil Kusale won the Olympic quota in men’s 50-metre rifle 3-position event with a fourth place finish in the World championship in Cairo, Egypt, on Saturday.
The 27-year-old Swapnil, who had won the silver in the World Cup in Baku earlier in the season, qualified with a high score of 593. He missed the bronze by 0.3 point to Jon-Hermann Hegg of Norway.
“I am happy for Swapnil. He has been training well for long. Our sport is so dependent on good equipment and ammunition. With TOPS support he could reach this far and I am confident he will stay among the world’s elite,” said long-time coach Deepali Deshpande.
It was the third Olympic quota in shooting for India after Bhowneesh Mendiratta (trap) and Rudrankksh Patil (air pistol).
Olympic silver medallist Serhiy Kulish won the gold by beating Tomasz Bartnik 16-6.
Rhythm Sangwan came agonisingly close to winning the Olympic quota, but missed the chance after being in the driver’s seat, in women’s 25-metre sports pistol.
The 18-year-old Rhythm led with 11 after three series, but a blank fourth series saw her slip to the third place in her ranking round. She had qualified in the third place with 587.
Qualification topper Doreen Vennekamp of Germany and Kim Jangmi of Korea assured themselves of the Olympic quota by making it to the medal round ahead of Rhythm.
India’s fine performance continued, as Esha Singh and Samrat Rana won the junior mixed team gold in air pistol, beating another Indian pair of Shikha Narwal and Sagar Dangi.
Sagar had won the junior men’s team gold earlier along with Samrat Rana and Varun Tomar.
In women’s 50-metre rife 3-position, Anjum Moudgil, Ashi Chouksey and Sift Kaur Samra placed seventh in the team event following scores of 1310 and 868.
India was undisturbed in the second place on the medals table with 12 gold, eight silver and 12 bronze medals. China was sitting on top with 24 gold, 15 silver and 13 bronze.
The results: Air pistol: Junior mixed team: 1. India (Esha Singh, Samrat Rana) 17 (579); 2. India-2 (Shikha Narwal, Sagar Dangi) 15 (580); 3. China-2 (Shen Yiyao, Liu Junhui) 16 (570); 4. China (Wang Siyu, Liu Yanchang) 8 (571); 3. Germany (Celina Becker, Andreas Koeppl) 17 (569); 4. Italy (Alessandra Fait, Matteo Mastrovalerio) 11 (575).
Junior men team: 1. India (Sagar Dangi, Samrat Rana, Varun Tomar) 16 (577) 867; 2. Uzbekistan (Mukhammad Kamalov, Ilkhombek Obidjonov, Veniamin Nikitin) 8 (571) 859; 3. China 16 (568) 857; 4. Korea 6 (566) 855.
50m rifle 3-position: Men: 1. Serhiy Kulish (Ukr) 16 (413.9) 593; 2. Tomasz Bartnik (Pol) 6 (409.4) 592; 3. Jon-Hermann Hegg (Nor) 407.9 (591); 4. Swapnil Kusale 407.6 (593); 14. Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar 588; 19. Niraj Kumar 588.
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