Sports

Angad, Mairaj Ahmad swell India's Olympic quota in shooting to 15

Sentinel Digital Desk

Doha: Angad Vir Singh Bajwa and Mairaj Ahmad won gold and silver, respectively, in the men's skeet event while Aishwarya Singh Tomar won bronze in men's 50m rifle three positions to confirm three more Olympic quotas for India at the Asian Shooting Championships here on Sunday.

India now has 15 Olympic quotas in shooting, the most the country has ever achieved in the run-up to the showpiece event.

Tomar joins Sanjeev Rajput, who had won an Olympic quota in the event at the ISSF World Cup in Rio in August. Tejaswini Sawant had won a quota in the women's 50m rifle three positions earlier at the Asian Championships.

Angad and Mairaj are the only Indians to have won quotas in shotgun events.

Apart from these, India have quotas in men's and women's 10m air rifle (Anjum Moudgil, Apurvi Chandela, Divyansh Singh Panwar, Deepak Kumar), women's 25m air pistol (Rahi Sarnobat, Chinki Yadav) and men's and women's 10m air pistol (Saurabh Chaudhary, Abhishek Varma, Manu Bhaker, Yashaswini Deswal).

Union Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju congratulated the shooters for their efforts. "The final score is here!! India has won 15 quotas places in shooting @Tokyo2020. This is the best-ever Olympic qualification in Shooting the country has seen. @KirenRijiju congratulates all the shooters who have qualified and wish them the best for their Olympic journey ahead," Rijiju's office tweeted. IANS