Rising shooter Varun Tomar on Monday secured India’s 14th Olympic quota place with a gold medal in the men’s 10m Air Pistol event of the Asian Qualifiers in Jakarta. India opened their account with three medals, including a team gold, at the continental event’s opening day.
The 20-year-old Tomar shot 239.6 in the final to claim the top position, while Arjun Cheema won the silver medal with a score of 237.3. Mongolia’s Davaakhuu Enkhtaivan (217.2) won the bronze medal. He is a former junior world champion and is the cousin of Tokyo Olympian Saurabh Chaudhary, who won a gold medal in the 2018 Asian Games.
Earlier, Tomar (586), Arjun (579) and Ujjawal Malik (575) shot a total of 1740 to win the 10m air pistol team gold, while Iran and Korea claimed the silver and bronze medals respectively.
A total of 16 quota places for the Paris Olympics are available at the continental showpiece in Jakarta. The 10m air pistol events for men and women have four quotas on offer with a maximum of three for the Indian shooters.
Esha Singh, Rhythm Sangwan and Surbhi Rao will shoulder Indian hopes in the women’s 10m air pistol event, where India have still to win a Paris quota.
As many as 385 athletes from 26 countries will take aim at the Senayan Shooting Range in Jakarta for 256 medals (84 gold, 84 silver and 88 bronze medals), besides the Paris quotas.
Ahead of this tournament, India had won 13 Olympic quota places in shooting across rifle, pistol and shotgun disciplines. While all available quota places in the rifle events have been secured, a total of three quotas have been won in pistol so far.
