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Journalism of Courage
The moment he fired his eighth shot, Abhinav Bindra knew his target was achieved. The Beijing Olympics gold medalist went to Munich with a one-point agenda of clinching the Olympics berth. And he did just that by finishing sixth in a field of 132 shooters with 122.4 points and winning one out of the three quota places up for grabs at the ISSF World Cup in Munich on Thursday.
Four out of the eight finalists had already booked Rio berths, meaning Bindra had to finish among the top-seven to win India’s fourth Olympic quota.
He was assured of the berth the moment Romania’s Alin George Moldoveanu bowed out after eight shots, finishing eighth with a score of 78.2 points.
Once the quota place was earned, it was only a matter of how high could Bindra finish. But the 32-year old took his foot off the pedal and could last only for four more shots and signed off in sixth position with a final shot 10.0.
“My game was for eight shots. And I knew then (that I had won the quota),” Bindra said.After a slow start to the season, Bindra had shown signs of his old self after he won the gold medal at an international tournament in Hannover.
He carried that form into the Fort Benning World Cup, where he missed out on the final by just one point. He went to Munich nursing a minor shoulder injury, but looked confident of securing an Olympic berth.
And on Thursday, he was in his element from the beginning. In a high-scoring qualification round, Bindra shot a remarkable 627.5 to qualify for the final.
In the six series, he shot a scores of 106.0, 105.3, 104.6, 102.0, 105.7 and 103.9. Bindra could’ve shot higher had he not shot a poor 9.9 and 8.9 in the fourth series.
However, he made up for the error in the following two series by scoring in excess of 10 from each shot to finish seventh in the qualification round.
He was irresistible in the final as well, leading the field after six shots, scoring 63.3 points. However, eventual gold medallist and Bindra’s long-time nemesis Zhu Qinan of China came back strongly.
Once Moldoveanu, who won gold medal at the London Olympics in 2012, bowed out after the next two shots,
Bindra appeared to have relaxed and did not push for medal positions and settled for sixth place with 122.4 points.
The two other quota places on offer were won by Serbia’s Stevan Pletikosic who was seventh and bronze medallist Oleh Tsarkov of Ukraine. Qinan won the gold with 206 points in the final whereas Russia’s Vladimir Maslennikov won the silver with 205.7.
Fourth qualifier
Bindra became the fourth Indian shooter to win a quota place. Gagan Narang, Jitu Rai and Apurvi Chandela are the other Indians to have secured an Olympic quota earlier. Narang did so after finishing third in the 50m Rifle Prone Event of the ISSF World Cup at Fort Benning in USA earlier this month.
Chandela had secured the quota place by winning the bronze in the 10m Rifle at the World Cup in Korea last month, while pistol ace Jitu Rai had won India’s first Olympic quota place at the World Championships in Granada, Spain last year, when he won silver in the 50m Free Pistol event.
Each country can win a maximum of 30 quota places from a total of 15 shooting disciplines (including shotgun events) — two each from each discipline.
