Chain Singh Secures India's Seventh Rio Olympics Quota with First World Cup Final Appearance

Promising Rifle shooter Chain Singh, secured India's seventh Rio 2016 Olympics quota place, when he reached the finals of the Men's 50m Rifle 3 Positions event at the ongoing ISSF World Cup (Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun) being held in Gabala, Azerbaijan, which is into its sixth day of competition. There were two quota places up for grabs and given the other finalists or their nations had already secured their quota places in the event, Chain claimed one of them along with Russian Fedor Vlasov.

In the grueling path to the finals, Chain shot his elimination round on day five of the competition, not quite in his elements, but found his bearings in a quality qualification lineup to reach the eight-man final in seventh position with a score of 1174.

Chain, an Army marksman, is a former Asian Games Bronze medalist and also the national record holder for this particular event along with the 50m Rifle Prone discipline. He had been shooting quite consistently over the last six months and a Rio quota was on the cards. He eventually finished in eighth position, being the first to be eliminated in the final round.

Olympic Bronze medalist Gagan Narang could only manage a 17th place finish in the same event with a score of 1170 while Surendra Sinh Rathod shot 1166 to be placed 32nd at the end of qualifying.

In other Indian interests of the day, women's pistol shooter Heena Sidhu missed an Olympic quota by the narrowest of margins when she was placed 12th at the end of the qualifying rounds of the Women's 10m Air Pistol. There were three quotas available in the event and given the permutations at play, the 11th placed Thai girl piped her by virtue of having shot one inner-10 more than Heena. The other Indian women in the event namely Yashaswini Singh Deswal and Shri Nivetha Paramanantham shot scores of 379 and 375 to finish 22nd and 51st respectively.

Day six also saw the start of the Trap shooting events for Men and Women. The Indian Women's Trap team of Shagun Chowdhary, Shreyasi Singh and Rajeshwari Kumari fought hard but could not make it to the finals. The Men's Trap team will be in qualification and finals actions on the seventh and last day of the competition on Saturday.