With a fifth-placed finish at Worlds, Sift Kaur Samra bags India’s sixth Paris 2024 quota spot | Sport-others News
Sift Kaur Samra became the sixth Indian to claim a quota spot for the 2024 Paris Olympics after a fifth-placed finish at the ongoing World Championships in Baku in the women’s 50m rifle three-position event on Monday. Three of those quotas have come at the 2023 Worlds with Akhil Shoeran securing a men’s 50m rifle three-position spot in Paris, as well as Mehuli Ghosh ensuring a women’s spot in the 10m air rifle event.
Before heading to the World Championships, 50m three position shooter Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar spoke about why the event, especially in its current iteration, can be such an unforgiving spot for shooters. One series of 95 in a 120-shot event is salvageable, but when its just a matter of 60 shots, then a 95 can be a death sentence.
For Samra, a poor qualification start in the kneeling position, one where she scored a 95 in her first series and then followed it up with a 97, must have felt like the end. She was 41st at that moment and looked out of the event. What followed next was a prone event where she landed a perfect 100 series and followed it up with a 99. And then in the standing position, one where many shooters tend to falter, she managed to go from the 41st position in qualification at one point to 5th – doing so shooting lights out and scoring two series’ of 99 each to end on 589 points.
In the finals of the World Championships for the first time (Samra finished 53rd at the Cairo Worlds last year), her kneeling series were once again an issue that pushed her back. A 50.2 in her first five shots and then a 49.7 from shot 11-15 pushed her into the eighth spot.
Once again, it would have to be prone and standing that would have to bail her out. And the recovery began well as she hit a 51.8 and then followed it up with 51.1 and 51.5. the end of the prone rounds, she had gone up to the seventh spot.Most Read
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She followed those scores up with a monster 53 series to start off her standing section. That series included three shots that were 10.7, one that was 10.6 and a 10.3. It led to her jumping into fifth spot and competing for the fourth spot against Tokyo 2020 Olympics gold medall Nina Chren.
But in her next series, Samra started out with yet another 10.7 but then had two bad shots, the first a 9.7 and then a 9.0 in succession. She recovered from it with a 10.5 and a 10.4 but those two blemishes in an otherwise remarkable standing series saw the gap between her and Chren increase and she eventually bowed out of the World’s 0.6 behind the current Tokyo champion.
In the 25m rapid fire pol, two Indians found themselves in a good spot to qualify for the final six. Adarsh Singh and Anish finished second and seventh and will participate in the second rapid fire qualification round on Tuesday.
