Indian shooters aim to cross Melbourne medal tally

(Attn Editors: This is the fifth of the previews discussing India’s chances in various disciplines at the New Delhi Commonwealth Games Oct 3-14. The piece is on shooting.)BY ABHISHEK ROY

NEW DELHI - An Olympic gold medallist, a World Champion and multiple World Cup medal winners are among India’s 28-member shooting squad for the Commonwealth Games. That should give India a bagful of medals.

Double-trap shooter Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore’s silver in the 2004 Athens Olympics and rifle-man Abhinav Bindra’s historic gold at the Beijing Olympics four years ago gave Indian shooters a shot in the arm. Today they are a force to reckon with at international competitions.

Besides Rathore and Bindra, the number of top-class shooters from the country is equally impressive - with Gagan Narang, Ronjan Sodhi, Manavjit Singh Sandhu, Samaresh Jung and the latest sensation and India’s first woman world champion, Tejaswini Sawant.

Indian shooters have been a dominant force at the Commonwealth Games. In the 2006 Melbourne Games, they won 27 medals, including 16 golds - comprising a large chunk of India’s overall tally of 50. Pistol shooter Jung, with five gold, was adjudged the best athlete.

The firepower of the shooting squad is such that it even can do without defending champion Rathore, who skipped the last day’s trials held two weeks ago, and newly crowned Arjuna Award winner Sanjeev Rajput. Both have been dropped from the squad. Rathore’s berth went to junior World Champion Asher Noria.

It has been an unusual preparation for the shooters, who had a hectic calendar in the run-up to the Oct 3-14 Commonwealth Games.

The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) has put more emphasis on international competitions than spending time in unhelpful conditions in camps, starting with the Commonwealth Shooting Championships in February. Then there has been a series of World Cups ending with the World Championship in Munich.

India’s medal haul at the Commonwealth Shooting Championships at Games venue Karni Singh Shooting Range in Delhi in February was 35 gold, 25 silver and 14 bronze for an overall tally of 74. The event was also used to test the facilities.

In the shot-gun World Cup in Mexico that followed , former World Champion Manavjit bagged the gold in the trap event. And in the Sydney World Cup, Joydeep Karmakar (50 metre rifle prone) and Rajput (10m air rifle) and Omkar Singh (10m air pistol) won silvers and Narang, who is the highest ranked Indian, shot the bronze in his pet 10m air rifle event at the Beijing World Cup.

World No.2 Narang has doubled the expectations by bagging the bronze at the World Championship in Munich, where defending champion Bindra finished a disappointing 25th and Tejaswini won the gold in the 50 metre rifle prone event.

Seema Tomar has emerged as India’s brightest hope in women’s trap event by winning the silver at the World Cup in Dorset, US. At Milan, Sodhi, a double world record holder, bagged the gold the in the double trap event and raised the expectations.

With medals coming in each and every international event, chief coach Sunny Thomas feels that Indians will dominate the shooting event at the New Delhi Games.

“At the Commonwealth Games all the participating nations will be in full strength and for us the real challenge is to surpass the Melbourne tally,” Thomas told IANS.

But Thomas feels that Indian shooters will get tough competition from Australia and England.

“These teams have some very good shooters who are among the top-10 in the world. But the way Indian shooters have prepared in the last seven months, I believe we are not much behind,” he said.

Thomas feels that international exposure has given the Indian shooters immense confidence.

“At the World Championships we had one of the biggest contingents with 68 shooters in both the senior and junior catergories and it shows our strength,” he said.

Thomas refused to pick any favourites, saying all shooters are capable of winning medals.

“India have reached the maximum number of medals teams can win from any multi-disciplined event.

From five medals in 1994 to 24 in Manchester and their best-ever tally in Melbourne, it’s a huge achievement. But this time it should not be a big problem, winning more medals than in the previous two editions,” Thomas said.

Being world No.2 Narang, himself, is aware of the expectations and wants to make his gun do all the talking.

“Commonwealth Games will be special and Indians will be the favourite to win medals. We have been training hard and I can call tell you the number of medals will be more than what we got in Melbourne,” he said.

Tejaswini also knows that the spotlight is on her. The 29-year-old from Kolhapur, who won two gold medals in Melbourne, lost her father in the midst of the Commonwealth Championships here earlier this year.

“I always tell myself to give my best performance in whichever event I participate and I will be doing the same during New Delhi Games as well. Of course, winning medals at home is a completely different experience,” she said.

The squad:

Rifle (men): Hariom Singh, Gagan Narang, Imran Hassan Khan, Abhinav Bindra

Pistol (men): Deepak Sharma, Omkar Singh, Vijay Kumar, Gurpreet Singh, Samaresh Jung, C.K. Chaudhary and Harpreet Singh

Shot gun: Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Mansher Singh (both trap), Mairaj Ahmad Khan and A.D. Peoples (both skeet) and Ronjon Sodhi and Asher Noria (both double trap)

Rifle (women): Suma Shirur, Kavitha Yadav, Meena Kumari, Tejaswini Sawant and Lajja Gauswami

Pistol (women): Anisa Sayyed, Rahi Sarnobat, Heena Sidhu and Annuraj Singh

Shot gun (women): Seema Tomar and Shreyasi Singh (both trap)

(Abhishek Roy can be contacted at abhishek.roy@ians.in)