Asian Shooting C'ships: Sarabjot Singh wins eighth Paris Olympic quota

Indian pistol shooter Sarabjot Singh clinched the bronze medal in the 10m air pistol at the Asian Shooting Championships 2023 in Changwon, Korea on Tuesday and also secured the eighth Paris Olympics quota for the country.

This is the first quota in the pistol events as India has secured seven quotas across rifle and trap events.

Sarabjot shot 221.1 in the final to finish behind two Chinese, Zhang Yifan (gold, 243.7) and Liu Jinyao (242.1) respectively. The Indian had earlier qualified for the top eights with a score of 581, which helped in clinching the eighth spot.

With China already exhausting its limit of two quotas in the event, Sarabjot had a good chance to win the first quota in Pistol events after qualifying for finals.

He shot to the lead after the first five shots which was crucial and as the two Chinese caught up and went past, Sarabjot was able to maintain his composure and register yet another international podium finish.

Other Indian shooters in the event disappointed as Varun Tomar finished 16th in qualification with 578 points, Kunal Rana finished 17th with 577 points, Asian Games medalist Shiva Narwal finished 20th with 576 points and Olympian Saurabh Chaudhary finished 35th with 569 points.

The women's pistol shooters put on yet another disappointing show as none of the shooters made it to the top eight for the final. Rhythm Sangwan finished 11th (577), Esha Singh 13th (576), Surbhi Rao 15th (575), Ruchita Vinerkar 22nd(571) and Palak ended 25th (570) respectively.

The junior pistol events and the men’s and women’s Skeet qualifications were also underway on day one of the competitions.