By Deepika Sarma
Twenty-six-year-old Heena Sidhu just won a gold medal at the 13th Asian Shooting Championship in Kuwait yesterday! She won first place in the 10m air pistol competition.
Sidhu scored 198.2, beating Otryadyn Gündegmaa, the Mongolian silver medallist at the 2008 Olympics in the 25m air pistol event, who registered 198.0, and South Korea’s Kim Jang-mi – who won a gold medal in the 25m pistol event at London 2012 – who shot 176.2. Earlier, it was promised that a victory would mean an Olympic berth for Sidhu, but that has changed, and Sidhu still needs to qualify.
In April 2014, Sidhu was the first Indian pistol shooter to receive a World No. 1 ranking, and last month in October, she won a gold medal in the 10m air pistol competition at the 8th Asian Air Gun Championship.
Perfectionist that she is, here’s what Sidhu had to say after yesterday’s win:
https://twitter.com/HeenaSidhu10/status/662597964070825984
Happily, Sidhu wasn’t the only winner in Kuwait. Shri Nivetha won a gold in the 10m air pistol junior women’s event, while Nayani Bharadwaj, Harshada Nithave and Malaika Goel won a team gold in the 10M air pistol women’s youth event. Shri Nivetha, Shreya Gawande and Oshin Tawani also won a team gold in the junior category. Yaaaay!