Sports India

Ace rifle shooter Abhinav Bindra Monday qualified for the 2008 Olympics Games with a gold medal at the World Championship in Zagreb, Croatia.

The 23-year-old shot 597 in the preliminary round and 102.1 in the finals for a total of 699.1/700 to become the fifth Indian shooter to make it to the Beijing Olympics Games, according to the official website of the World Championship.

Bindra began the qualifiers with a perfect 100 and followed it up with a sequence of 99, 100, 100, 99 and 99 for a total of 597/600 from the six rounds to make it to the finals.

In the 10-round finals, he shot 10.3, 10.3, 10.3, 10.0, 10.6, 9.3, 10.9, 9.2, 10.5 and 10.7 to take his grand total to 699.1/700 (597+102.1) that fetched him a ticket to his third successive Olympic Games.

India’s Gagan Narang, who has already qualified for the Olympics, and Sanjeev Rajput finished 31st with 592/600 and 37th with 591/600, respectively, and failed to qualify for the finals.

Before the Chandigarh-based Bindra, double trap specialist Rajyawardhan Singh Rathore, who won the historic silver at the 2004 Athens Olympics Games, Anjali Bhagwat, Narang and Manavjit Singh Sandhu had earlier booked their berths.

A total of 44 Indians, including 15 juniors, are vying for several Olympics berths on offer at the championship that started in Zagreb Saturday.

Among the prominent ones looking to seal Olympics tickets are Samresh Jung, who won five gold, one silver and one bronze medal at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in March, Jaspal Rana and Ronak Pandit in the men’s category and Deepali Deshpande in the women’s.

About 2,000 competitors from close to 100 countries are taking part in the competition