Heena Sidhu clinches a spot in this year’s Olympics

The ace Indian shooter Heena Sidhu has won a gold medal in the Asia Olympic qualifying competition held at the Karni Shooting Range in New Delhi. 26-year-old Sidhu claimed this victory in the 10-m air pistol on day one of the competition. She shot a remarkable 199.4 to win the qualifiers.

“I was just concentrating on the process. I knew that I was doing well. I was confident that I would win a quota today," Heena told reporters after the event as reported by NDTV.

The once world champion and a world record holder currently, Sidhu’s score surpassed the score of  Chinese Taipei's Tien Chia Chen who shot 198.1 and Korean Gim Yun Mi who shot 177.9 who stood at second and third respectively.

Heena shot an impressive 10.3 in the second last shot of the finals to extend her lead to 1.5 points over her rival from Chinese Taipei. The Indian shot exactly 10 in her final attempt and it was enough to get her the top prize, despite a 10.2 from Tien Chia Chen, wrote Firstpost.

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Sidhu has now become the ninth contestant from India to have qualified for Olympics after Jitu Rai, Abhinav Bindra, Gagan Narang, Apurvi Chandela, Gurpreet Singh, Prakash Nanjappa, Chain Singh and Mairaj Khan.

“I am extremely satisfied that it has happened. I had too many close shaves in the past and a failure here would have been a shame for me. But yes I can relax now and let it sink in,” said Sidhu to HT.

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Before this victory, Sidhu also won gold medals in the Asian Air Gun Championships and Asian Shooting Championships in Kuwait last September and November, in that order. She actually claimed to fame when she became the first Indian to be ranked number one globally for pistol shooting in the ISSF World Cup finals in 2013.

Picture Credit- Firstpost