Abhinav Bindra clinches Olympic quota

PUNE: Champion shooter Abhinav Bindra, who calls himself a '2016 Olympic medal wannabe', has moved a step closer towards his goal. The Beijing Olympics gold medallist won a Rio Games quota place for India on Thursday but missed out on a medal in the 10m air rifle final at ISSF World Cup in Munich.
After Bindra's effort, India now have four Olympic quotas Jitu Rai, Apurvi Chandela and Gagan Narang have already qualified for the Rio Games.Bindra, 33, who finished seventh in the qualification round with a score of 627.5, shot 122.4 in the final to finish sixth.
Other Indians in the fray, Gagan Narang (620.4) and Sanjeev Rajput (614.8), finished 57th and 91st respectively in the qualification round.
Since three of the other finalists ­ Zhu Qinan (China), Vitali Bubnovich (Belarus) and Haoran Yang (China) ­ have already qualified for the Rio Games and Russia's Vladimir Maslennikov wasn't eligible to win a quota as his country had already won maximum two places in the event, the fight for three quotas was between four shooters. Apart from Bindra, Ukraine's Oleh Tsarkov, Serbia's Stevan Pletikosic and London Games gold medallist Alin George Moldoveanu (Romania) were competing for the three quotas. After first eight shots, the Romanian shooter was the first to get eliminated. After Moldoveanu's departure, the other three ­ Bindra, Oleh and Pletikosic were all assured of the quotas.
In the women's 10m air rifle event, India's Apurvi Chandela finished 17th with a score of 416.3, while Ayonika Paul shot 416.2 for the 18th place. Anjali Bhagwat was poor 65th with 412.5.