The National Rifle Association of India is not happy with shooting not being on the initial list of sporting disciplines for the Commonwealth Games 2026 which will be played in Victoria in Australia. The Secretary-General of NRAI Kunwar Sultan Singh feels that the non-performance of other Commonwealth countries has led to this move.
"We cannot understand the idea of this entire process of Commonwealth Games authority because ever since these games have started shooting has been one of the most important sports. Their non-performance has not gone down well with CWG authorities. Indians and Asians have always been the winners and have been on the medal tally. The Commonwealth countries were somehow not able to beat it. So, they have forcefully pushed it out of the list, " said Secretary-General of the NRAI Kunwar Sultan Singh while speaking to ANI.
Australia have hosted Commonwealth Games in 2006 in Melbourne as well as in 2018 at Gold Coast recently and in both the events they had shooting as a sporting discipline.
"If you can see then since 1800 to 2018 the sport of shooting has been its part and it was in top priority event. In fact in London earlier as well the events have taken place. In London Olympics 2012 there were shooting ranges but later on they dropped it citing logistics support problems and lack of ranges and that is why they dropped, " said Kunwar Sultan Singh.
In the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, India bagged 16 medals in shooting including seven gold, four silver and five bronze while in wrestling India won 12 medals which includes five gold, three silver and four bronze. The second team on the list was Australia being far behind having only nine medals with three gold, five silver and one bronze.
"We approached IOA as well as the government that we will do Commonwealth shooting in India but they said that they will not add the medals in CWG tally then all these things had no logic to it. So we had to drop it. We were hoping that in the next edition shooting will be included again but now in Melbourne what they have declared is the mandatory list and now they have put three disciplines in the optional category in which there is shooting, wrestling and archery and in all the three sports India is very dominant. We are requesting the government to somehow get it back in order to give our shooters a level playing opportunity," said Kunwar Sultan Singh.
With these three games missing in Commonwealth Games 2026 in Victoria India's medals tally is certainly going to take a hit.
( With inputs from ANI )
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