New look Indian team for World Cup at home
Nine of the 12 shooters who competed in the Rio Olympics will be seen in action, albeit two of them, Apurvi Chandela and Prakash Nanjappa, will be in the MQS (Minimum Qualificaiton Score) section.
Published : Jan 29, 2017 19:44 IST
It will be a new look Indian team for the first World Cup of the season in shooting, to be staged at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, here from February 24 to March 3.
Of course, nine of the 12 shooters who competed in the Rio Olympics will be seen in action, albeit two of them, Apurvi Chandela and Prakash Nanjappa, will be in the MQS (Minimum Qualificaiton Score) section.
With the former World and Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra having quit the sport after placing fourth in the Rio Games, only former World Champion Manavjit Sandhu and Ayonika Paul will miss out among the latest Olympians.
It may not matter much at this stage, as the race for making the national team will hot up only next year when there are big competitions like the World Championship, Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games.
Kynan Chenai, Mairaj Ahmad Khan, Gagan Narang, Jitu Rai, Heena Sidhu, Chain Singh and Gurpreet Singh have been able to retain their place in the national squad that was selected on the basis of the performance of the shooters in the last National Championship in Pune and two selection trials.
Gagan Narang has been able to book a berth only in the rifle prone event, and not in air rifle or rifle 3-position events. The 14-year-old Shapath Bharadwaj has been able to make the men’s double trap team along with Sangram Dahiya and Ankur Mittal.
Quite surprisingly only eight shooters have been entered in the MQS section and most of them are seasoned like Shagun Chowdhary, Shreyasi Singh, Annu Raj Singh apart from Apurvi and Prakash.
India has entered 48 shooters in all, and the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) has not made any announcement for the team, even though the international federation ISSF has put out the official list after the deadline.
There will be a total of 409 shooters from 45 countries, competing in a new format in most of the events.
Provision has also been made in the schedule for mixed team competitions as per the new suggestions that are still being decided for the next Olympics in Tokyo.
The Indian team:
Men:
Air rifle: Ravi Kumar, Satyendra Singh. MQS: Hriday Hazarika.
Rifle 3P: Sanjeev Rajput, Chain Singh, Satyendra Singh.
Rifle prone: Sushil Ghalay, Gagan Narang, Chain Singh.
Air pistol: Jitu Rai, Amanpreet Singh, Omkar Singh. MQS: Prakash Nanjappa.
Rapid fire pistol: Neeraj Kumar, Gurpreet Singh, Harpreet Singh.
Free pistol: Jitu Rai, Amanpreet Singh, Gurpal Singh. MQS: Prakash Nanjappa.
Trap: Kynan Chenai, Zoravar Singh Sandhu, Birendeep Sodhi.
Double trap: Shapath Bharadwaj, Sangram Dahiya, Ankur Mittal.
Skeet: Angad Vir Sing Bajwa, Amrinder Cheema, Mairaj Ahmad Khan. MQS: Arjun Singh Mann.
Women:
Air rifle: Vinita Bhardwaj, Pooja Ghatkar, Meghana Sajjanar. MQS: Apurvi Chadela.
Rifle 3P: Elizabeth Susan Koshy, Anjum Moudgil, Tejaswini Sawant.
Air pistol: Heena Sidhu, Harveen Srao, Priyanka Susvirkar.
Sports pistol: Shreya Gawande, Muskan, Surabhi Pathak. MQS: Annu Raj Singh.
Trap: Manisha Keer, Rajeshwari Kumari, Seema Tomar. MQS: Shagun Chowdhary, Shreyasi Singh.
Skeet: Arti Singh, Rashmee Rathore, Saniya Sheikh. MQS: Jasmeen Kaur.