Olympic quota winners Apurvi Chandela and Anjum Moudgil are set to retain their place in the national squad in women’s air rifle for the World Cup to be staged at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, in February.
While Apurvi has been consistent and topped the chart after the addition of the merit points for her Olympic quota and the world rank, Anjum has just about managed to get herself placed third behind Elavenil Valarivan, who has been in brilliant form.
The team for the World Cup is likely to be selected in the second week of January.
A bunch of good shooters, including the Commonwealth Games silver medallist Mehuli Ghosh, Meghana Sajjanar, Shreya Agrawal, Shriyanka Sadangi, Aayushi Gupta, Olympian Ayonika Paul, World University champion Viita Bhardwaj, former Asian champion Pooja Ghatkar follow the top three in the provisional rankings.
Anjum, of course, tops her main event, 50-metre rifle 3-position, in which she holds a world record 1180 in qualification. Gaayathri Nithyanandam and former World Champion in prone, Tejaswini Sawant, follow Anjum at the top of the list.
The young Manu Bhaker, the Commonwealth Games and Youth Olympics gold medallist, is likely to retain her place in both the air pistol and sports pistol events, as No.1 and No.2 respectively. Heena Sidhu climbed to the second spot after her world record score of 587 in air pistol in the recent trials. Anuradha of Navy looks set to pip established names like Shri Nivetha, Shweta Singh, Yashaswini Singh Deswal and Annu Raj Singh to make the squad.
In sports pistol, Asian Games gold medallist Rahi Sarnobat tops the provisional list, and Chinki Yadav is placed third behind Manu, ahead of Annu Raj Singh, Heena Sidhu, Shreya Gawande, Pushpanjali Rana.
In men’s air rifle, the two established shooters Deepak Kumar and Ravi Kumar remain at the top, and are followed by Divyansh Singh Panwar, who has been in roaring form during the recent trials, across men’s, junior and youth events
In the rifle 3-position event, Olympians Chain Singh and Sanjeev Rajput stay at the top. They are followed by Parul Kumar who looks to overtake the World Cup gold medallist Akhil Sheoran, who has been struggling with below par qualification scores.
In rapid fire pistol, Anish Bhanwala, Arpit Goel and Adarsh Singh are in the top three, ahead of Olympian Gurpreet Singh, Bhavesh Shekhawat and Olympic silver medallist Vijay Kumar.
The averages were still being worked out for men’s air pistol, in which Asian Games gold medallist, World Junior champion and Youth Olympics champion Saurabh Chaudhary is the overwhelming favourite to retain his top position. It will be interesting to see, who manage to join him in the squad.
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