Ahead of Rio Olympics, another quota-less day for Indian shooters

NEW DELHI: Indian shooters could not secure any Rio Olympics quota for the second consecutive day as Singapore's star markswoman Jasmine Xer won the gold medal in 50m rifle 3 positions at the Asia Olympic Qualifying Competition at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range in New Delhi to book a ticket to the quadrennial extravaganza.

Iran's Mahlagha Jambozorg bagged the silver and Korea's Kyerim Lee clinched the bronze, claiming the other two quotas available in the event.

India's Elizabeth Susan Koshy finished fourth, leaving the host country with no quotas to claim on day five of competition at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range.

Jasmine gave early indications of her determination to claim an Olympic quota when she topped qualifying with a score of 586 to enter the finals.

Through the entire length of the 45-shot final round split between the three positions of kneeling, prone and standing respectively, Jasmine remained in the top two except briefly at the end of the prone series, when she slipped to fourth.

Korea's Kyerim Lee was giving her company at the top displaying amazing consistency, while Mahlagha and the Indian were engaged in a fight for the bronze medal position.

But after the first five series of the standing round, Jasmine cemented her place at the top and following a disastrous 47.1 by Elizabeth, the Iranian and Korean shooters had pulled away from the rest of the field to fight for the silver and bronze positions.

Elizabeth finally got eliminated in the fourth position after the 43rd shot. She hit a 7.9 in her 33rd shot while standing and could never really recover from that after a bright first 30 shots in the finals.

In the women's 25m pistol event, none of the three Indians could qualify for the eight woman final after Rahi Sarnobat finished 12th with a score of 575, Anisa Sayyed was 17th with 572 and Annu Raj Singh 21st with 570 after two rounds of qualifying.

Korea swept the medals in this event with Koh Eun winning gold, Munjung Kim fetching the silver and Ji Hye Kim finishing with the bronze medal.

The three Olympic quotas in the event were won by Korea (who could claim only one quota in the event as they had won one earlier), Japan's Akiko Sato who finished fourth and Singapore's Shun Xie Teo who ended fifth.

With two days to go, there are still four events and 10 quota places up for grabs in the tournament.

Day six will see the finals of men's 10m air pistol and women's skeet. Indian interests in the men's event lie with Omkar Singh, Aman Pathania and Jitendra Vibhute while Saniya Sheikh, Arti Singh Rao and Rashmee Rathore will lead India's challenge in women's Skeet.

The men's air pistol has two Rio quota places available while women's Skeet has only one.