Denied competition for more than a year due to the COVID-19 epidemic, India’s unprecedented pistol and rifle shooters will renew their quest for excellence when the ISSF World Cup begins on Friday. In the first multi-nation Olympic game of this scale anywhere in the world amid the epidemic, India is building a strong 57-man squad, including 15 quota holders for the Tokyo Olympics. While this would be the first competitive fixture for pistol and rifle shooters in a world devastated by health, those in the Skeet and Trap events competed in the Shotgun World Cup in Cairo, Egypt last month.
There is no dearth of proven performers in the Indian team and some of them will look to use it as a testing ground before the Olympics, but the tournament admitted that it has significance for Anish Bhanwala.
For the Commonwealth Games gold medalist, an 18-year-old player from Karnal, a good performance here will help them secure the Olympic quota and India’s already 16 will grow phenomenally.
Speaking to Indian shooters during a pre-tournament press conference on Wednesday, National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) President Raninder Singh mentioned about India’s prospects in the event, the men’s 25-meter rapid fire pistol, in which Aneesh Compete.
“We wish everyone the best and, in particular, our men’s rapid fire pistol team, where we have the opportunity to deliver the 16th Olympic quota to the country,” Raninder told reporters.
What Aneesh can help in his endeavor is his high world ranking and the merit of others is above him.
Aneesh is currently ranked 12th in the world. The ISSF may allocate individual quotas to the athlete who accumulates more ranking points by the May 31 deadline.
This tournament is more important for shooters to gain rank based points and later quota for Tokyo Games. On the first competition day, India will compete in the men’s 10m air rifle qualification by Divyanshu Singh Panwar, Arjun Babuta and Deepak Kumar.
Pankaj Kumar and Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar will be shooting in MQS (minimum merit score). It will be followed by a world-class lineup featuring the highly talented Elavenil Valarivan, Anjum Moudgil and Apoorvi Chandela (India’s first two Tokyo Games quota winners) in the women’s 10m air rifle competition.
Srikana Sadangi and Nisha Kanwar will be at MQS. The second competition day will be a star-studded affair as the likes of sensational Manu Bhaker, Saurabh Chaudhary, Abhishek Verma and Yashaswini Singh Deswal take it to a limit aimed at adding to the awards won in recent years.
The qualification and finals of the 10m air pistol events for both men and women will be held on Saturday, with excellent shooters such as Elavenil, Anjum, Apoorvi and Divyansh can also be seen, provided they overcome the qualification hurdles on the opening day of the joint Do it world Cup.
With the postponement of next month’s World Cup in Korea due to 14 compulsory hard quarantines for inbound travelers by India and some other countries, shooters living in Tokyo do not have a lot of tournaments to stake out their chess. Olympics
Except for the tournament in the Indian capital, there is a joint World Cup schedule in Baku, Azerbaijan from 21 June to 2 July and the Shotgun World Cup in Lonato, Italy from 7–17 May.
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The absence of shooting powerhouses China and Japan will certainly be felt, but it certainly will not take away the thrill of competition from shooters in the biggest tournament in a long, long time.
A total of 294 athletes will be seen in action at the tournament, with 53 countries confirming their entry, including Korea, Singapore, USA, United Kingdom, Iran, Ukraine, France, Hungary, Italy, Thailand and Turkey.
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