Shriyanka Sadangi won India a 13th Paris 2024 Olympics quota place, when she finished fourth in the women’s 50m rifle 3-positions rifle event at the on-going 15th Asian Shooting Championship in Changwon, Korea.
Sadangi shot 440.5 to bow out after the 43rd shot of the 45-shot final. Experienced Korean shooter Lee Eunseo won gold while reigning air rifle world champion Han Jiayu of China won silver. China also took the bronze through Xia Siyu.
All Indian women shooters in the 3P competition were on top of their mark from the qualification stage itself. Sift Kaur Samra, the India number one, shot 592 playing for ranking points only (RPO) to soar to the top of the field.
Ashi Chouksey shot 591 to take the first qualifying spot among contenders and second overall. Sadangi and Ayushi Podder also made the top-eight with scores of 588 and 587 respectively. Manini Kaushik, shooting RPO as well, was 10th overall with a tally of 586.
The trio of Sadangi, Chouksey and Podder also won the women’s 3P team gold with a combined tally of 1766, ahead of Kazakhstan and Korea.
Sadangi was the hottest off the blocks among the three Indians in the final beginning with a 10.9. She was second with 51.3 after the first five kneeling shots, while Chouksey and Podder were sixth and seventh respectively.
After 10-shots, Han and Lee were already 1-2 and at the end of it Sadangi had replaced Chouksey in fourth, a position she would hold till the end.
The Prone position saw Chouksey begin her move up while Sadangi consolidated her fourth spot. Podder fell behind to seventh. Lee had taken over the lead from Han.
The fourth shot in the standing position was telling for both Sadangi and Chouksey as the former shot a 10.8 while the latter an 8.7. An Indian quota was confirmed after the first 10-shots in the standing position when Korean Bae Sanghee and Podder bowed out in eighth and seventh respectively.
Going into the final five single-shots in fifth and sixth positions, Sadangi shot 10.1 to Chouksey’s 9.8 as the former confirmed the quota. Arina Altukhova of Kazakhstan was out next, but she too had picked up one of the two available Paris quotas. With 1.6 between her and China’s Xia, Sadangi shot a 10.0 for her 43rd to finish a creditable fourth.
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