India's Yashaswini Singh Deswal won gold in the women's 10m air pistol event at the ISSF World Cup in Rio de Janiero on Saturday. Her medal assured India of a second berth in the event at next year's Tokyo Olympics.
Yashaswini shot a total of 236.7 in the final to comfortably finish on top, ahead of Ukraine's Olena Kostevych (234.8) and Serbia's Jasmina Milovanovic (215.7), who finished with silver and bronze respectively.
With her win, India has now secured a maximum possible two quota places from this event for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the previous one coming after Manu Bhaker had finished fourth in the Munich World Cup held in May.
Interestingly, this was the 22-year-old's first senior World Cup win in her maiden senior tournament. She had earlier won gold in the junior World Championships in 2017 with a score of 235.9 in the final. She had also win a silver medal in her event at the junior Asian Championships in Kuwait City in 2014 before securing another silver at the junior ISSF World Cup in Suhl, Germany in 2016.
India is now on top of the medals tally at the World Cup with five medals secured in four days of competition after having won three golds, one silver and one bronze medal so far. This tally now equals the country's best result at any World Cup after their table-topping six medals at Munich earlier in the year.
In the 10m pistol event, Yashaswini had qualified for the finals after finishing first in the qualification round with a score of 582 points, four points ahead of China's Qian Wang and Iran's Golnoush Sebghatollahi, who finished second and third respectively with 578 points. Compatriots Annu Raj Singh (572) and Shweta Singh (568) failed to meet the top-eight mark for the final after finishing 21st and 31st respectively.