Thus he joined the Indian bandwagon as the fifth shooter after Gagan Narang (Air rifle), Anjali Bhagwat (Air rifle), Manavjit Singh Sandhu (trap) and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore (double trap) to book their Beijing Olympic quota places.

When contacted, coach Sunny Thomas told The Indian Express: ‘‘He was simply superb today. He deserved to win and his scoring in the final was mindboggling.’’

Holding his nerve in finals, Bindra called the shots with an excellent performance for a score of 102.1 to clinch the gold. The Romanian (698.3) who did not have a good round in the finals managed the silver, thanks to his qualificiation score (597). Chinese Qinan Zhu also upped his concentration level in the finals to score 102.9 (697.9) to pushed out Jozef (597+100.8=697.8), according to information reaching here.

Pleased as punch over his son’s performance, Abhinav’s father Dr A.S. Bindra told The Indian Express, ‘‘it gives me immense pleasure that he is a world champion now. And clinching a spot in the Beijing Olympics is just icing on the cake.”

— With inputs from Ikhhlaq Singh Aujla

...Avneet joins elite company

NEW DELHI: On a profitable day at Zagreb, Avneet Kaur Sidhu became the sixth Indian to clinch a quota place for the Beijing Olympics.

Despite finishing eighth in the finals with a score of (397+101.2), the Punjab girl was lucky to make it to Beijing as others before her had already won their quota places.

‘‘Avneet is sure to get the quota even before her final is over as others who are ahead of her have already qualified for the Olympics,’’ coach Sunny Thomas said.