Baku [Azerbaijan], August 17 : A galaxy of Shooting stars will descend on the Baku Olympic Shooting Range here in the capital and commercial hub of Azerbaijan, with competitions to the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championship All Events beginning on Thursday, with the Men’s and Women’s 10m Air Pistol finals lined up on day one.
While Sarabjot Singh, Shiva Narwal and Arjun Singh Cheema would aim for India in the Men’s event, Divya T.S., Esha Singh and Palak shoulder responsibilities in the Women’s competition.
A total of 1249 athletes, among them Luna Solomon who competes as the lone Refugee athlete, from 101 nations will take 2378 starts in the world’s premier Shooting competition, where winners will boast of being world champions in their event. In the first half of the championship till August 24, 2023, a total of 15 finals of all the Olympic events have been rostered, where each of the 12 individual Olympic events will dish out as many as four Paris 2024 quotas, besides medals to the winners.
India have won three Paris quota places till now through Rudrankksh Patil (10m Air Rifle Men), Swapnil Kusale (50m Rifle 3 Positions Men) and Bhowneesh Mendiratta (Trap Men). With the who’s who of Shooting competing in Baku, it remains to be seen how many more quotas India can add to their tally.
Among those who will compete at Baku will be six reigning Olympic champions and many former Olympic and World Champions. The reigning champions include France’s Jean Quiquampoix (25m Rapid Fire Pistol Men), Switzerland’s Nina Christen (50m Rifle 3 Positions Women), Iran’s Javad Foroughi (10m Air Pistol Men), Slovakia’s Rehak Stefecekova Zuzana (Trap Women), Czech Republic’s Jiri Liptak (Trap Men) and the USA’s Vincent Hancock. Besides, all 12 world number ones in Olympic events will also be competing.
After India which has the largest 53-member contingent, Germany has sent a 44-strong squad whereas the USA has entered 40 athletes. Asian and world shooting powerhouse China has entered a 36-member squad while the other major Asian shooting power Korea has also entered a large 39-member contingent. 34 Indian Shooters will be competing in the Olympic events, however.
As far as quotas go, France has a quota each in each Olympic event while China do not have quota places in the Trap and Skeet events yet. The USA has the maximum 15 quota places till now and have exhausted their quotas in five of the 12 events including in Men’s Trap and Skeet, 10m Air Rifle Women and 50m Rifle 3 Positions Women as well as in the Women’s Skeet. Besides other traditionally strong Shooting nations like Italy (7), Czech Republic (6), Germany (5) and Korea (5) also have more quotas than India at this stage. An individual shooter can only win one quota for his country and each country in turn can only win two quotas per event.
As far as ISSF World Championships go, India over the years have won a total of 85 medals including 31 gold.
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