New Delhi: 28-year-old Armyman Gurpreet Singh on Saturday missed sealing India’s fifth Rio Olympics quota place by the narrowest of margins, when he finished fourth in the Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol event at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup (Rifle/Pistol) in Munich. At one stage of the final, Gurpreet looked set to take the silver medal before being relegated to fourth position post a three way tie and a shoot-off in the second competition stage of the final.

Keith Sanderson of the USA and Alexi Klimov of Russia finished in silver and bronze medals positions, thus denying Gurpreet his ticket to Rio. There were two quota places up for grabs in the event. The German Gold Medal winner of the event Christian Reitz, had already sealed his quota earlier and therefore was not eligible here. This meant that Gurpreet had to finish amongst the top three to bag the quota place.

Earlier Gurpreet had shot 581 in the qualification round to enter the Final as the fourth best shooter, ahead of the US Silver Medal winner Sanderson, who qualified in sixth position. This has been Gurpreet’s best performance of the year by far, after disappointing finishes in the earlier World Cups in Changwon and Fort Benning. This also equals his best finish in all World Cups, post a fourth place finish way back in 2010. Gurpreet is a double Commonwealth Games Gold Medalist and his other international success has been a Bronze Medal finish is an Asian Championship in Tehran, two years ago.

Former Olympic Champion, Abhinav Bindra had ensured India its fourth quota place on the opening day of the competition with a sixth place finish in the Men’s 10m Air Rifle event. The other Indian shooters to have already booked Olympic quota places for themselves include Jitu Rai, Gagan Narang and Apurvi Chandela.

In the other deciding event of the day, the Indian trio of Gagan Narang, Chain Singh and Surendra Singh Rathod, bowed out in the qualification rounds of the Men’s 50m Rifle Prone event. Chain was again the best finisher amongst the three, shooting 623 for a 21st place finish while Gagan and Surendra shot 615.3 and 612.5 respectively to finish 63rd and 69th.