ISSF World Cup: Yashaswini Singh secures India's 9th Olympic quota with gold

Shooter Yashaswini Singh Deswal became the ninth Olympic berth holder from India in shooting as she added a gold medal to her name in the women’s 10m air pistol event at the International Shooting Sport Federation World Cup in Rio De Janeiro. The 22-year-old Yashaswini shot 236.7 in the eighth-women team's final event of the season’s fourth World Cup for the pistol as well as rifle shooters.  

The former junior world champion is the 13th Olympic quota holder from India as she joins the likes of her counterparts Sanjeev Rajput, Saurabh Choudhury, Divyansh Singh Parmer, Apurvi Chandela, Anjum Moudgil, Abhishek Verma, Rahi Sarnobat, and Manu Bhaker. Yashashwini blasted past World No.1 Olena Kostevych who had to make an exit with a silver medal. Serbia’s Jasmina Milavonovic, who recorded 215.7,  bagged a bronze medal. 

Young Yashaswini is, however, no stranger to victory. She had also topped the qualification events by a mile while aggregating an overall score of 582. This is India’s third gold medal in Rio after Elavenil Valarivan and Abhishek Verma secured gold in the women’s 10m air rifle and men’s 10m air pistol, respectively.  The Indians also continued to prosper well in the non-competition Minimum Qualification Score (MQS) segment. While the duo, Annu Raj Singh and Shweta Singh bowed out in the qualifications, it was Manu Bhaker who shot an eye-popping 580 in the MQS (Minimum Qualification Score).

In the women’s 50m rifle 3 positions, Kajal Saini delivered an impressive shot by finishing 22nd with an overall qualifying score of 1167. Former world champion Tejaswini Sawant finished with a total score of 1156. Adarsh Singh and Anish Bhanwala shot an impressive 291 out of 300 to secure 13th and 14th positions respectively in the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol.