Wednesday, July 26 2006 12:20 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Zagreb: India's upcoming 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 here.

Avneet recovered from a shaky start in the qualification to fire three perfect 100 and tally 397 which earned her a chance to compete in Bejing Olympics in 2008.

In the finals, 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 having also booked their places.

Tejaswini 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 CZE with a score of 501.8 (398+103.8) Olga Dovgun of Kazakhstan got the bronze with 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 (1192) while China bagged the silver (1190). Russia, who had six points more than India, finished third.