Indian team leaves for Shotgun World Championship

The trap and double trap shooters were accompanied by the junior skeet shooters, to give the latter a little more chance for acclimatisation to the competitive conditions.

India will have the second largest team from among the 83 countries featuring 582 shooters in all.

The first batch of the 29-member Indian shooting team left for the Shotgun World Championship in Lonato, Italy, on Friday. The trap and double trap shooters were accompanied by the junior skeet shooters, to give the latter a little more chance for acclimatisation to the competitive conditions. The skeet shooters will be leaving on Sunday as their competition is scheduled to start on July 5. They have been training under Olympic champion coach Ennio Falco in Delhi for about a week. Two shooters Soumya Gupta and Rajeshwari Kumari will only be shooting the MQS section.

READ: Kumar Surendra Singh Championship: Shweta, Amanpreet bag mixed Air Pistol gold Incidentally, India will have the second largest team from among the 83 countries featuring 582 shooters in all. Host Italy will have 33 shooters, and other leading nations like China (28), Russia (25) and US (24) will have a big share of participation. It may be noted that the World Championship does not offer any Olympic quota places, and thus the medals will be the focus for the shooters. Two of the country’s best shotgun marksmen, former World Champion Manavjit Singh Sandhu and the Asian skeet champion Angad Vir Singh Bajwa do not figure in the team as they have been out with ill-health for some time.