Vijayveer Sidhu secures India’s 17th Paris 2024 Olympic quota in shooting

Vijayveer Sidhu won the Olympic quota in rapid fire pistol with a silver medal in the Asian shooting championship in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Saturday.

It was the 17th Olympic quota for Indian shooting for the Paris Olympics and second quota in rapid fire pistol after the one won by Anish Bhanwala.

India has swept all possible Olympic quota in rifle and pistol, except for one in women’s air pistol.

In trap and skeet, India has so far managed to win two of the maximum possible eight Olympic quota places. The Asian qualifier starts in Kuwait on Sunday.

A country can win a maximum of 24 Olympic quota places, eight each from pistol, rifle and shotgun for men and women.

Vijayveer qualified with a modest 577, but was quite sharp in the final. However, Nikita Chiryukin of Kazakhstan was superior and won the gold with a four-point margin, to bag the Olympic quota in style.

Adarsh Singh who was on par with Vijayveer at the halfway stage, slipped to the 29th spot with 565, one rung above Olympian Gurpreet Singh.

In women’s rifle 3-position event, Asian Games champion and world record holder Sift Kaur Samra won the silver, 1.9 point behind Lee Eunseo of Korea. Ashi Chouksey won the bronze, pulling ahead of Olympian Anjum Moudgil by 0.1 point.

The sixth placed Kim Jehee of Korea and the seventh placed Alexandra Le of Kazakhstan won the Olympic quota places.

The Indian trio easily clinched the team gold, six points ahead of Kazakhstan.

India was on top of the medals table with 12 gold, 10 silver and eight bronze. China was second with seven gold, five silver and four bronze medals.