India’s Saurabh Chaudhary qualified for the Youth Olympics Games with a gold medal and a junior world record in 10m air pistol at the ongoing Asia Youth Olympics Games qualification tournament in Wako City, Japan. He became the the third Indian to bag quota places for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games at the 10th Asian Airgun Championship.
The 15-year-old shot a record score of 243.1 in the final to storm to the top of the podium, after finishing third in the qualification round with a score of 573.
Salavati Erfan of Iran took the silver with 236.2 points, the wide gap showing the significant advantage Chaudhary had in the final, while Korea’s Shin Okcheol completed the podium with 217.6 points.
Another Indian, Arjun Singh Cheema, finished first in the qualification with a score of 577 but couldn’t keep up the form in the final, finishing sixth with a total of 156.8.
Saurabh, who hails from Uttar Pradesh, had earlier finished fourth in the World Junior Championship in Suhl in June. He had claimed the team bronze in the men’s 10m Air Pistol event along with Anmol Jain, Arjun Singh Cheema.
On Saturday, Mehuli Ghosh and Tushar Mane became the first Indian shooters to secure the women’s and men’s quota places for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games by winning a gold and bronze each in the 10m air rifle Youth.
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