Sanjeev battles rifle issues to bag country's 12th Rio quota

NEW DELHI: Sanjeev Rajput overcame a technical issue with his gun to win a quota for the Rio Olympics at the Asian Olympic Qualifying competition which concluded at the Karni Singh shooting range here on Tuesday. Tuesday's achievement made Sanjeev Rajput the 12th Indian shooter to book a berth for the Rio Games.
Sanjeev, who had an impressive score of 394 each in kneeling and prone in the qualifying rounds, was placed eighth after first five shots in kneeling.He gained only one position at the end of 15 kneeling shots.
Every shooter gets to shoot a total of 15 shots each in kneeling, prone and standing positions before a changeover.
Explaining his inconsistency in the final, Sanjeev said, "I have had a tough 2015 where I had to change my shooting jacket and gun two times. For this competition, I had trained hard but the barrel extension of my gun started giving me problems in the last three days. I tried getting it fixed as I could not change it at this stage. That led to an inconsistent performance in the finals as I was finding it difficult to adjust," Sanjeev said later.
Adjusting to the situation, the 35-year-old shot the highest score of 52.9 among all finalists in the second series of 5 shots in prone position. He was now placed fifth and had reduced the 3.3 points deficit to only 0.9 points from fourth-placed Toshikazu.
Sanjeev improved in the standing position too, by claiming the third spot behind South Korea and Japan. He then hit a poor 7.7 that sealed his place at fourth but was good enough to help him the quota in the event. Other two quotas on Tuesday were won by Qatar's Vitaliy Dovgun and Thailand's Napis Tortungpanich, who finished fifth and sixth respectively .
"I did not quite settle down in kneeling and standing positions in the finals which resulted in some poor scores. But I am happy that I managed to secure a quota for India as the pressure of performing on the last day in the last qualifying event was huge. I am hoping that my form starts improving after this performance," Sanjeev, who has won a World Cup gold, said. Chain Singh had already booked one quota in the event as each country can earn two quotas in one event.
Men's skeet event was heartbreaking for the hosts as Angad Vir Singh Bajwa missed the final cut by just one target. He shot 118.
Indian shooters won four quota places in this qualifying event ­ Ayonika Paul (10m air rifle), Heena Sidhu (10m air pistol), Kunanchena (men's trap) and Sanjeev Rajput (50m rifle 3 positions). A total of 12 quotas have been won by the Indian shooters, one more than for the London Olympics.
Expressing delight over India's performance, National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) president Raninder Singh said, "I am happy to have won more Olympic quotas than last time but at the same time we also have to take a long hard look at why we missed so many of them after coming so close.."