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India opened their medal account at the ISSF World Championship 2026 with one gold and two silver medals on Tuesday but missed out on securing any LA 2028 Olympic quotas in the men's and women's 10m air rifle events in Doha, Qatar.
India's gold came in the men's 50m pistol team event, while Ravinder Singh claimed individual silver in the same discipline. The women's 10m air rifle team of Elavenil Valarivan, Sonam Maskar and Shambhavi Kshirsagar added another silver to the country's tally, according to Olympics.com. Ravinder, Saurabh Chaudhary and Amanpreet Singh combined to secure the men's 50m pistol team title with an aggregate of 1659-24x. Ravinder led the Indian trio with 559-11x, while Saurabh shot 551-7x and Amanpreet contributed 549-6x. China finished second with 1648-26x, while the Republic of Korea took bronze with 1643-26x. Ravinder also finished on the individual podium, shooting 559-11x to claim silver, two points behind neutral athlete Anton Aristarkhov, who won gold with 561-9x. Romania's Luca Joldea took bronze with 558-5x. The men's 50m pistol is not part of the Olympic shooting programme. India's second silver came in the women's 10m air rifle team event, where Elavenil, Sonam and Shambhavi aggregated 1894.4 points. China won gold with 1899.8, while Japan secured bronze with 1892.6. Elavenil was the standout performer among the Indian shooters, scoring 634.2 to finish third in qualification and progress to the eight-shooter individual final. Sonam placed 19th with 630.5, while Shambhavi finished 32nd with 629.7. The two-time Olympian was the only Indian to reach an individual final across the men's and women's 10m air rifle events but finished sixth in the women's final with 167.3 points, missing out on an LA 2028 quota. South Korea's reigning Olympic champion Ban Hyojin won gold with 253.1, ahead of China's Han Jiayu (252.2) and Wang Zifei (231.0). Han, a Paris 2024 Olympian and former world champion, secured one of the Olympic quota places for China. Under the qualification rules, a country can earn only one quota per event at a single ISSF World Championship, meaning China could not claim another through Wang's bronze-medal finish. France's Oceanne Muller secured the third quota after finishing fourth with 209.5 points. A fourth-place finish would have been enough for Elavenil to earn an Olympic quota for India. India also failed to make the men's 10m air rifle final, which offered three LA 2028 quota places. Parth Mane was the best-placed Indian, finishing 16th with 630.3 points. Himanshu Dhillon placed 41st with 628.1, while Paarth Makhija finished 61st with 625.2. The ISSF World Championship will continue until November 14, with 36 LA 2028 Olympic quota places available across the 12 individual Olympic shooting events. (ANI)
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