Bindra grabs gold, Olympic berth
Zagreb (Croatia): Ace shooter Abhinav Bindra overcame back pain to become the first Indian to win a World Championships gold medal in men's 10m air rifle while also bagging the Olympic quota place in Zagreb on Monday.
Bindra shot 699.7 with a superb final round to win the honour.
The Indian's 597 in the qualification was identical to the scores of silver winner Alin George Moldoveanu of Romania and Jozef Gonci of Slovakia, who eventually finished fourth.
The bronze medal went to Qinan Zhu of China who shot 697.9 (595 + 102.9).
But in the final, Bindra took the lead twice by shooting 10.3 in the first three rounds and with a 10.5 in the penultimate round which assured his victory.
He tallied 102.1 in the final round.
Bindra, who is suffering from a chronic back pain, has immediately left for Germany to consult doctors and is expected to undergo a major surgery.
Coach Sunny Thomas heaped praise on his ward saying Bindra, who was also the world record holder as a junior, was the most deserving contender.
"He is the most deserving and hardworking candidate here. Score wise it is ok but the final round was very good," he said.
"Since he is leaving for Germany he will not compete in three position and prone events," he said.
Bindra will be competing in his third Olympics at Beijing in 2008.
Gagan Narang, who has already won the quota place earlier this year, finished 31st with the score of 592 while Sanjeev Rajput was 37th with the tally of 591.
Narang shot a series of 99, 100, 99, 99, 96 and 99 but that was not enough to qualify for the finals. Rajput fired 98, 98, 98, 97, 100, 100.
In the women's 10m air rifle, Avneet Kaur Sidhu was lying fourth with the score of 397 in the qualifications but has already confirmed a quota place. She had scores of 97, 100, 100 and 100.
"Avneet is sure to get the quota even before her final is over as others who are ahead of her have already qualified for the Olympics in some or other event," Thomas said.
Tejaswini Sawant shot a none-too-impressive 394 (99, 97, 98 and 100) in qualification to be 14th.
India now have six Olympic quota berths with the other three coming from Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore in double trap, Manavjit Singh Sandhu in trap and Anjali Bhagwat in air rifle.
Bindra's gold-winning feat could not lift India to a medal in the team event as they could manage a total of 1780 for a fourth place finish.
The gold went to China with a tally of 1783 as Jie Li (595), Qinan Zhu (595) and Lei Zhang (593) guided the team to first place.
The silver went to Russia with an aggregate of 1783 while Austria claimed bronze with 1782.
India finished ninth in the 50m pistol event for junior men with a tally of 1571.
Amanpreet Jhaam finished 18th with a score of 538 while Bapu Vanjare was 32nd with a tally of 528. Nikhil Yadav languished in 55th place with 505.
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