The first batch of 22 Indian shooters accompanied by 13 support staff left for Buenos Aires on Wednesday to participate in the year’s first ISSF World Cup, which will begin from April 3 in the Argentina capital.
IMAGE: A total of 35 Indian shooters will participate across 15 medal events including 12 individual and three mixed team competitions. Photograph: NRAI/X
It will be a combined World Cup in which competitions will be held in all the three disciplines of rifle, pistol and shotgun shootings.
A total of 35 Indian shooters will participate across 15 medal events including 12 individual and three mixed team competitions.
Double Olympic medallist Manu Bhaker is the only athlete to have made the cut in two individual events.
The remaining members of the squad will depart on March 29 as their competitions begin in the latter stages of the tournament.
Barring a couple of exceptions, all shooters reported to the national camp organised by the National Rifle Association of India at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting ranges in Delhi from March 14 for final preparations ahead of a double World Cup leg in South America, with Lima, Peru hosting the second tournament, right after the season-opener at Buenos Aires.
Earlier Ronak Pandit, high performance manager of the Indian team, had spoken about maximising the potential of every athlete attending the camp.
He said, “We have a larger coaching team this time and also a lot of new crop of young talent that has come in, so the initial days was all about trying to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the shooters, find out what they have been up to and then and devising programmes accordingly for each one of them, along with the coaches.”
The Indian team for the first two World Cup stages is a mix of youth and experience with as many as 16 Olympians in the squad, besides former world champions and world number ones.
However, the focus will also be on an exciting group of youngsters such as Suruchi, Sainyam, Arya Borse, Sonam Maskar, Narmada Nithin, Ashi Chouksey and Bhavtegh Gill, who will all be looking to win their first individual ISSF World Cup stage medal.
Ronak also spoke about a culture that has been developed in the team where everyone is trained to live in the moment.
“In the camp when the new upcoming talent see Olympic medallists, world champions, world number ones, getting back to being students of the game, following processes, continuously trying to improve, learning from their coaches, grinding it out and basically being grounded and living in the moment, I think that is the greatest learning that the youngsters can take,” Ronak quipped when asked about the progress of the youngsters in the camp.
The tournament will also see a few comebacks. Saurabh Chaudhary, a former world number one, will be making a World Cup comeback after a gap of close to a year and a half, and same is the case with seasoned pistol shooter Gurpreet Singh.
