Heena shoots gold, qualifies for Olympics

New Delhi, January 28
For close to 10 months, Heena Sidhu endured a tremendous amount of pressure while focussing solely on qualifying for the Rio Olympics. In April last year, the Punjab shooter had come really close to securing a quota place for Rio but missed out on the final berth at the ISSF World Cup in Changwon, South Korea.
Another opportunity came knocking on her door last November when she travelled to Kuwait for the Asian Shooting Championships. But she later found out that the event had been stripped of its Olympics qualifying status. Although she won gold in the 10 metre air pistol event, the wait only got longer for her.
On Wednesday, at the Karni Singh Shooting Range, Heena was provided with another chance to seal her Olympics ticket at the Asian shooting qualifiers — but this time, the stakes were quite high. For Heena, and many other hopefuls, the event was the last chance to qualify for the Rio Games from the highly-competitive Asian region.
There was a sense of fear and apprehension. A long discussion with husband-cum-coach Ronak Pandit ahead of the competition could well describe her state of mind. For the 26-year-old Patiala-born girl, it was a “now-or-never-moment”.
But the former world No. 1 overpowered two formidable enemies — nerves and pressure — to shoot her way to gold in the 10m air pistol event and secure India its ninth quota place for the Rio Olympics.
Showing nerves of steel, Heena topped the qualification round with a score of 387. Later, in the eight-woman, 20-shot final, she shot 199.4 to finish at the top. She pipped Chinese Taipei’s Tien Chie Chen (198.1) by 1.3 points to win the gold. South Korea’s Gim Yun Mi (177.9) finished with a bronze. These two shooters had already qualified for the Olympics from earlier qualification tournaments and were not entitled for quota places from this event.
This made Heena’s passage easy as she only had to ward off the challenge from two Iranian shooters, Sebghatollahi Golnoush and Elham Harijani, and Singapore’s Xiu Hong.
Heena led from start to finish as she consistently shot in the 10-point region while extending her lead over her formidable rivals from South Korea and Chinese Taipei. She fired an excellent 10.3 with her penultimate shot and then, with a precise 10-point shot, secured the gold and a Rio Olympics berth.
“I was nervous before the final as this was the last chance to qualify for the Olympics. But, as I started shooting in the range of 10s, I grew in confidence and the result is in front of everyone. This has come as a double delight for me as not only have I secured an Olympics quota, but also ended up with gold. I will be participating in the next two World Cups in the lead-up to the Rio Games to keep a check on my progress,” Heena said.
The other Indians in the fray had disappointing results, failing to even clear the qualification hurdle in the men’s 50m rifle (prone) and women’s trap.
In women’s trap, Shreyasi Singh lost out in the shoot-off, while Swapnil Kusale finished 14th.