Top shooters eye Olympic quota in shooting World Cup

Anjum Moudgil will compete in the air rifle event, as a maximum of two quota places have already been won, with Olympian Apurvi Chandela grabbing the second.

Manu Bhaker will participate in three events in the upcoming shooting World Cup. (File Photo)

Anjum Moudgil will be competing in the Minimum Qualifying Score (MQS) section of women’s rifle 3-position event in the first World Cup of the season to be staged at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad, from February 23 to 27.

In an attempt to enhance the chances of winning Olympic quota place for Tokyo, the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) decided to put three other shooters in the team, as Anjum would not be eligible to win any more quota place, having won the air rifle quota in the World Championship with the silver medal.

However, Anjum will compete in the air rifle event, as a maximum of two quota places have already been won, with Olympian Apurvi Chandela grabbing the second.

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Anjum and Apurvi will shoot the mixed air rifle event with Ravi Kumar and Deepak Kumar respectively.

Anjum will not compete in the 12th Asian Air Gun championship in Taoyuan, Chinese Taipei, from, March 27 to April 1. Her place will go to Meghana Sajjanar. The mixed event will feature Elavenil Valarivan in partnership with Ravi Kumar.

A whole bunch of prominent shooters like Mehuli Ghosh and Esha Singh will compete in the junior section of the Asian Air Gun championship.

Manu Bhaker will participate in three events, the air pistol, sports pistol and the mixed air pistol with Saurabh Chaudhary.

The team: Men: Air rifle: Deepak Kumar, Ravi Kumar, Divyansh Singh Panwar. 50m rifle 3-position: Chain Singh, Sanjeev Rajput, Parul Kumar. Air pistol: Saurabh Chaudhary, Abhishek Verma, Ravinder Singh. 25m rapid fire pistol: Anish Bhanwala, Arpit Goel, Adarsh Singh. Women: Air rifle: Apurvi Chandela, Anjum Moudgil, Elavenil Valarivan. 50m rifle 3-position: Gaayathri NIthyanandam, Tejaswini Sawant, Sunidhi Chauhan. MQS: Anjum Moudgil. Air pistol: Manu Bhaker, Heena Sidhu, Anuradha. 25m sports pistol: Rahi Sarnobat, Manu Bhaker, Chinki Yadav. Air rifle mixed team: Deepak Kumar & Apurvi Chandela; Ravi Kumar & Anjum Moudgil. Air pistol mixed team: Saurabh Chaudhary & Manu Bhaker; Abhishek Verma & Heena Sidhu.