Indians eye glory at Munich World Cup

Apurvi Chandela, Pooja Ghatkar, Jitu Rai will be part of the Indian contingent at the Munich World Cup.

Apurvi Chandela will compete in the women's air rifle event.

India will attempt to begin its campaign on a good note in the second World Cup of the season for rifle and pistol in Munich on Friday.

The opening day will have air rifle competition for men and women. Former Asian champion Pooja Ghatkar, who won the bronze medal in the first World Cup in Delhi, will compete along with World Cup final silver medallist and Olympian Apurvi Chandela and Meghana Sajjanar.

The World University champion Vinita Bhardwaj will be competing in the Minimum Qualifying Score (MQS) section in women’s air rifle event.

In fact, there will be eight shooters, including Olympic bronze medallist Gagan Narang, competing only in the MQS section, which means that they will not be eligible for the final. Narang, who has been shooting good scores in Europe recently, will be competing in the men’s 50-metre rifle prone event. He, however, hasn't entered the 10-metre rifle and the 50-metre rifle 3-position events.

Deepak Kumar, Ravi Kumar and Satyendra Singh will shoot in the men’s air rifle event. Deepak and Ravi had made the final in the last World Cup in Delhi, finishing fifth and eighth, repectively.

Asian champion Jitu Rai will spearhead the Indian challenge in the men's 50-metre free pistol event. He and Amanpreet Singh were the top two shooters in the last World Cup. Olympian Prakash Nanjappa will compete in air pistol and free pistol. He had topped both events in MQS with the highest score among all.

World Cup gold medallist Rahi Sarnobat, Surabhi Pathak and Muskan will compete in the women's 25m sports pistol event. Olympian Annu Raj Singh and the young Chinki Yadav will be shooting in the MQS section for the same event.

While the shotgun shooters have already had three World Cups, with double-trap marksman Ankur Mittal winning a gold and silver, the rifle and pistol shooters will move from Munich to Gabala, Azerbaijan, for the third and last World Cup in June.

The shotgun shooters will also compete in the World Championship in Russia in September. The World Cup Finals for the top-10 performers of the season in shotgun, rifle and pistol will be held in Delhi in October.