Youth Olympic Games 2018: Mehuli Ghosh, Tushar Mane bag place in 10m Air Rifle

New Delhi: Mehuli Ghosh and Tushar Mane today became the first Indian shooters to secure the women's and men's quota places for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games (YOG) by winning a gold and bronze each at the 10th Asian Championship 10M Rifle/Pistol at Wako City, Japan.

Ghosh struck gold to bag one out of three quota places up for grabs in women's 10m Air Rifle Youth, while Mane settled for a bronze medal to secure one out of four quota places available in the men's 10m Air Rifle Youth Olympic Games.

Apart from booking two quota places at YOG, India today bagged a total of three gold and three bronze to add to their five medals won on the first day of the competitions.

India could not have asked for a better start to the day as Samiksha Dhingra outgunned her Chinese rival in the final of the junior women's 10m Air Rifle to claim the gold medal.

She shot a score of 249.6 at the end of the allotted 24- shots to pip silver winner Yu Zhang by 0.1 point.

Singapore's Martina Lindsay Veloso settled for bronze with 227.2 while India's Shreya Saksena finished eighth with 121.3.

Samiksha and Shreya also teamed up with Manini Kaushik to win the Team bronze with a combined score of 1238.1, behind Iran who bagged silver with 1243 and gold medallists China with 1246.6.

Mane was the first Indian to book a YOG 2018 quota place as he finished the eight-man final with a score of 228.2 to clinch the bronze in men's 10m Air Rifle youth event. China's Changhong Zhang finished on top with a final score of 250.0 while Bangladesh's Arnab Sharar claimed silver with 249.5.

India's Hriday Hazarika had also qualified for the final and finished eighth with 121.1.

Mane, Hriday and Mohit Agnihotri teamed up to win the Team gold in the event with a combined score of 1863.1. China bagged silver while Korea took the bronze.

India's second YOG quota was won by Ghosh when she not only topped her qualifying round with a score of 420.6, but also led from the start in the final, and except for a brief while in the initial stages, kept shooting consistently to stay ahead of the pack till the very end.

She shot 250.5 in the final to edge out a fast finishing Mingwei Gao of China by 0.1 point in the final analysis.

Ghosh combined with Rakshna Chakkaravarthy and Sreya Agrawal to clinch the Team bronze with a total of 1240.5.

China won a gold with 1253.1 and Korea won silver with a team total of 1241.2.