Round Up of World Cup Changwon

Indian shooters need to focus more in 2009

15 April 2009. It is understandable, after a high in 2008 Olympic games, in a non-Olympic year, where nothing is at stake for the top shooters from around the world--no quota places for London Olympics, marginal dip in the performance is but natural.

But for the Indian shooters this year (2009) is suppose to be a preparatory period for a tough 2010 season ahead, that will feature events like the Commonwealth Games, ISSF World Cup and Commonwealth Shooting Championships all three on the home soil, apart from the Asian Games and the World Championships.

In the Commonwealth competitions, Indians do dominate, but going by the current performance in international events, it indicates that shooters need to focus more to maintain their supremacy.

In 2010, India will also host World Cup in the first quarter of the year. The event will have quota places for 2012 London games.

Taking into account the results of the season opening World Cup that concluded recently in Changwon, Korea, it seems, the Indian shooting contingent, except few, lacked the enthusiasm to push themselves.

Gagan creates history

Had ace rifle shooter Gagan Narang not created history by winning the two medals in the men’s 10m air rifle and 50m 3 position event, 38-member team would have returned empty-handed from the global competition held from April 9-14. Narang, however, narrowly missed a medal chance in 50m prone event finishing 4th.

But despite the low key competitive season, some international shooters particularly from Russia and China, gave a good account of themselves. Take for example Alexei Klimov, winner of men’s rapid fire event with a score of 590 in the preliminary round and a total score of 790.2 after the finals.

Indians in the fray--Pemba Temang and Vijay Kumar, both from Army, were more than 10 points behind the winner. The duo, who have good facilities at their disposal, need to dig deep into their reserve to come up good in international competitions.

Encouraging performance in men's air pistol

But what was heartening that men’s air pistol event results were encouraging. Going by the performance, Indian shooters, it seems, are inching towards world class scores of 585. In the absence of ace pistol shooter--Samresh Jung, international shooter Amanpreet Singh (582 --Minimum Qualifying Score, category) and Om Prakash (581) did score plus-580, which augur well for future of the event.

In the women’s event, however, shooters are yet to shrug off not-so-consistent tag. Take for example--National champion in the women 10m air pistol---Heena Sidhu had scored 384 (preliminary) in the January edition of the national championships, followed by another good score of 388 in an international competition in Europe, but in Korea she failed to repeat her performance and had to settle for 377 to finish 23^rd. In a strong field that saw Chinese shooter Tong Xin score 398 (489.4) for the gold, the best Indian in the fray--Shweta Chowdhary (380) was ranked 13^th .

Harveen Srao (374--MQS) and Anisa Sayyed (371) were other Indians in the field.

Narrow miss for Meena and Lajja

India’s Meena Kumari and Lajja Goswami, though narrowly missed a medal chance in the women’s 50m 3 position event--both scoring 579, in the preliminary round, faltered in the finals, that too in the last shot. The duo also need to put in more efforts to catch up their rivals.

Tejaswini Sawant (572--MQS), Anuja Jung (571) Kuheli Gangulee (565), were also in the fray.

The Indian shooting caravan will now go to Beijing, China, to participate in the second edition of the ISSF World Cup begining from Saturday. indianshooting.com