Shooter Rahi Sarnobat books London Olympics berth

Indian shooter Rahi Sarnobat booked a berth for the 2012 London Olympics by winning a bronze in the 25m air pistol event at the ISSF World Cup at Fort Benning, in the US.

Rahi is the sixth Indian shooter to qualify for the London Olympics. The Kolhapur girl fired a 789.7 that placed her third, and gave her a berth for the upcoming Olympics. Rahi qualified for the finals with a score of 582. She then fired a brilliant 207.7 to clinch the third spot.

China's Chen Ying equalled the world record (796.7 points) to win the gold. Mongolia's Otryad Gundegmaa shot 789.8 to take home the silver medal.

Rahi, who won two gold medals in the Delhi Commonwealth Games, had missed the quota on couple of occasions earlier this year at the ISSF World Cups held at South Korea and Australia.

Gagan Narang, Hari Om Singh, Ronjan Sodhi, Sanjeev Rajput and Annu Raj Singh are the others to qualify for the London Olympics.

"I am extremely happy after winning my first Olympic quota. It's every sports person's dream to take part in Olympics and this is like a dream come true for me," Rahi said.

She thanked her sponsors Lakshya and Vascon and 'Gun for Glory', the shooting academy set up by Narang, for providing great training.

Rahi has been training at the academy at Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex, Balewadi, Pune.

The other Indians in the competition, Anisa Sayyed qualified for the finals but finished seventh (787 points) while Annu Raj, who has won a quota in the air pistol event, came a distant 33rd with a score of 574.