India and China dominated the first day of the Asian Shooting Championships, winning two gold medals each at the Lusail Shooting Range.

While the medals were surely important, the focus was more on the Olympic quota places. Three berths were up for grabs in the men’s 10M air rifle, the first final of the day.

China’s Liu Yukun (250.5 points) stormed to the gold, beating his countryman Yu Haonan (249.1), with India’s Deepak Kumar (227.8) claiming the bronze.

But with China having already secured two quota places, the quotas were allocated to the shooters who finished behind in that order. Deepak, Japan’s Masaya Endoh and Shao Chuan of Chinese Taipei thus picked up Olympic slots for their countries.

China’s Qiang Yan won the gold in the women’s 10M air rifle, earning the second Olympic berth for her country in the event. Tesa Neo of Singapore and Eunhea Jung of Korea won silver and bronze respectively.

Neo sealed an Olympic berth for Singapore and with Korea already having earned their quota place for Tokyo, the third quota went to Ying-Shin Lin of Chinese Taipei who finished fourth.

In the women’s 10M air pistol, India, China and Korea had already sealed two Olympic quotas each. As such, Indian shooter Manu Bhaker’s impressive show to win the gold did not matter as far as Olympic quotas were concerned. It was the same for China despite Qian Wang and Ranxin Jiang winning silver and bronze respectively.
Bhaker, just 17, shot a junior world record of 244.3 to steal the show.

The three Olympic quotas went to Iran’s Haniyeh Rostamiyan, who finished seventh, and two shooters — Jo Yung Suk (PRK), Yamada Satoko (JPN) – who did not even make the final.

The fourth final of the day saw India and China face off for the gold in the trap mixed team junior final. Indian shooters Vivaan Kapoor and Manisha Keer were too good for their Chinese opponents Ting Zhang and Pengyu Chen and they won 34-29.