Rifle shooters Arjun, Tilottama bag Olympic quota places with silver medals in Asian Championships

Arjun Babuta became the ninth Indian shooter overall to clinch an Olympic quota place. He also became the sixth rifle shooter in both men's and women's categories to earn a Paris Olympics berth. Tilottama Sen followed suit as she shot a total of 252.3 in the women's final to fetch the 10th Olympic quota place for India.

New Delhi:Indian shooters Arjun Babuta and Tilottama Sen earned two Paris Olympic quota places by clinching silver medals in the men's and women's 10m air rifle events respectively, at the ongoing Asian Championships in Changwon, Korea on Friday. The 24-year-old Babuta also helped the team which included Divyansh Singh Panwar and Hriday Hazarika to clinch the gold medal with an aggregate score of 1892.4.

Arjun Babuta became the ninth Indian shooter overall to clinch an Olympic quota place. He also became the sixth rifle shooter in both men's and women's categories to earn a Paris Olympics berth. The 15-year-old Tilottama followed suit as she shot a total of 252.3 in the women's final to fetch the 10th Olympic quota place for India. Tilottama narrowly missed out on the gold as she finished behind Eunji Kwon of Korea, who shot 252.4.

Tilottama's compatriot Ramita bagged the bronze with an effort of 230.6. Indian shooters have bagged seven quota places in rifle, two in shotgun, and just one in pistol. Babuta, who hails from Chandigarh but trains at the National Centre of Excellence for shooting sport at the Karni Singh Ranges, also locked the second and final Olympic quota for the country in 10m air rifle, with compatriot Rudrankksh Patil being the first in 2022 World Championships at Cairo.

A country can win a maximum of two quota places in a particular shooting event. Babuta shot 251.2 in the eight-shooter final to finish behind silver medallist at the 2022 Tokyo Olympics, China's Sheng Lihao, who shot 252.1. Divyansh too made it to the final but finished fourth, scoring 209.6.

Babuta shot a superb 633.4 in the qualification round to top the field, while Panwar was third with a score of 632.3. Two other Indian shooters, Ravishankar Karthik (631.5) and Rudrankksh (630.8) also shot fine scores to be among the top eight. But Karthik and Rudrankksh could not enter the eight-player final as they were competing for ranking points only (RPO) and were thus not eligible.

For the team gold, where only the qualification round scores are considered, Babuta shot 633.4, Divyansh 632.3, and Hazarika 626.7 to aggregate 1892.4 and pushed China to second spot with a score of 1887.3. Japan were third with a score of 1883.6. (PTI)