Olympic-hopeful shooters gear up for national selection trials; will be held from January 5, 2021
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Olympic-hopeful shooters and other top shooters from the country will finally be seen in competitive action after a gap of nearly year. The national selection trials are scheduled to begin from January 5 at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Ranges in order to choose the national squad for the calendar year 2021.
The trials will go on for 10 days in both rifle and pistol shooting. The likes of Saurabh Chowdhary, the Asian Games champion in 10m air pistol and Divyansh Singh Panwar will be seen in action ahead of the all-important Tokyo Olympic Games which will be held in July 2021, after being postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There hasn’t been any competition as the calendar was disrupted by pandemic. Hence it will be good platform to make an honest assessment of the athletes,” head coach of the pistol shooting team Samresh Jung said.
Number of participants reduced due to COVID-19 pandemic
The usual national selection trials for shooting would see in excess of 200 participants. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of participants have been reduced in each event. In the 10m air pistol, there will be 27 while in the 10m air rifle, there will be 31. In the 25m rapid pistol, there will be only 16 while the 50m rifle will see 20. In all other events, the maximum limit has been fixed at 30.
Apart from restrictions in the number of participants, other regulations such as the requirement to submit a COVID-19 negative test report before the event and to follow all social distancing protocol will have to be adhered to. It has also been made mandatory to mention the name of the coach or parent failing which entry will not be allowed.
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Nevin Clinton
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