Avneet Sidhu wins Olympic quota place

India's [ Images ] up-and-coming shooter Avneet Kaur Sidhu earned an Olympic quota place despite finishing eighth in 10m Air Rifle women's event at the ISSF World Shooting Championships in Zagreb.

Avneet recovered from a shaky start in the qualification round to fire three perfect 100s and tally 397 which earned her a chance to compete in the Beijing [ Images ] Olympics [ Images ] in 2008.

In the final, she shot a score of 101.1 for a final tally of 498.1.

Avneet thus brought up India's sixth quota place for the Beijing Olympics, with Rajyavardhan Rathore, Gagan Narang, Manavjit Sandhu, Anjali Bhagwat and Abhinav Bindra [ Images ] having also booked their places.

Tejaswini [ Images ] Sawant finished 23rd with a score of 394 while Deepali Deshpande was a distant 70th with a total of 390.

Du Li of China won the gold after managing 502.1 (398+104.1) while the silver was grabbed by former World champion Katerina Kurkova of the Czech Republic with a score of 501.8 (398+103.8). Olga Dovgun of Kazakhstan got the bronze, tallying 500.9 (398+102.9).

In the team event, India finished fourth with a tally of 1181. The gold in the team event went to Germany [ Images ] (1192) while China bagged the silver (1190). Russia [ Images ], who had six points more than India, finished third.