India’s Heena Sidhu became the 9th Indian shooter to book a quota for the 2016 Rio Olympics on Day One of the Asian Shooting Olympic qualifiers in New Delhi on Wednesday. The 26-year-old doubled the happinness by eventually winning the Gold in the 10m Air Pistol event to get the week-long competition off to a good start for ths hosts.
The 26-year-old finished the qualifying in 1st place with a score of 387 that included two consecutive 96’s in the second and third series and in the final recorded a score of 199.4, which was 1.3 more than the Tien Chie Chen of Chinese Taipei, who finished second and 20.2 ahead of Gim Yun Mi, who finished third.
This is Heena’s third straight Gold medal after her triumphs at the Asian Airgun Championships in September and at the Asian Shooting Championships in Kuwait in November, where she recorded a score of 198.2 in the final.
Sidhu’s quota takes the tally to 4 as far as the Pistol event goes. The other three qualifiers here include Jitu Rai(Men’s 10m Air Pistol), Gurpreet Singh(Men’s 25m Air Pistol) and Prakash Nanjappa(Men’s 50m Air Pistol).