Sports India

India’s Navnath Farthate won the gold medal in junior men’s air rifle event at the World Shooting Championships in Zagreb, Croatia, on Tuesday. He shot 596 out of 600 to become the second Indian junior ever to win a gold medal at the quadrennial event.

Jaspal Rana had won the gold as a junior in standard pistol in 1994.

This is India’s second gold in the championship after Abhinav Bindra won the 10m air rifle event on Monday.

India also won two bronze medals and two Olympic quota places so far from the ongoing championship.

Meanwhile, India’s up-and-coming shooter Avneet Kaur Sidhu earned an Olympic quota place despite finishing eighth in 10m Air Rifle women’s event at the ISSF World Shooting Championships in Zagreb.

Avneet recovered from a shaky start in the qualification round to fire three perfect 100s and tally 397 which earned her a chance to compete in the Beijing Olympics in 2008. In the final, she shot a score of 101.1 for a final tally of 498.1.

Avneet thus brought up India’s sixth quota place for the Beijing Olympics, with Rajyavardhan Rathore, Gagan Narang, Manavjit Sandhu, Anjali Bhagwat and Abhinav Bindra having also booked their places.

Tejaswini Sawant finished 23rd with a score of 394 while Deepali Deshpande was a distant 70th with a total of 390.

Du Li of China won the gold after managing 502.1 (398+104.1) while the silver was grabbed by former World champion Katerina Kurkova of the Czech Republic with a score of 501.8 (398+103.8). Olga Dovgun of Kazakhstan got the bronze, tallying 500.9 (398+102.9).