Palak wins Paris Olympics Quota in 10m Air Pistol

Last year, Palak, 18, had to take a tough call of skipping her medical entrance exam. A bright student, Palak wanted to focus on her shooting and on the Olympic qualifiers.

On Sunday, the Haryana shooter proved her decision right by clinching a Paris Olympics quota place in the women’s 10m air pistol with a bronze medal finish at the Rio World Cup, the final qualifier for the 2024 Games.

This is India’s 20th quota place in shooting, the highest so far in its Games history. 

It also completes the set in rifle and pistol events for the Indian contingent, which has for the first time grabbed all 16 quota places on offer.

Shotgun shooters have won four out of eight berths available, the highest number for them too.

Palak made it to the final on Saturday after finishing sixth in the qualification round along with teammate Sainyam (7th).

Surbhi Rao missed the eight-woman final after finishing ninth.

On Sunday, Palak recovered from a shaky start in the final after hitting an 8.9 in her second shot.

Though she couldn’t hit bigger 10s (barring a 10.8 and 10.6), she managed to keep going with 9.8s consistently.

Her closest competitor, Veronica Major, a Tokyo Games participant from Hungary, was ahead of Palak till the fourth series of the elimination, but two 8s (8.8, 8.9) set the former back.

From there on, Palak didn’t lose the third position and finished with 217.6 points to win bronze and one of the two quota places.

The other quota went to second-placed Kamonlak Saencha of Thailand as the gold medallist, Elmira Karapetyan, of Armenia had already won a quota in previous tournaments.