India’s chances of winning medals in shooting at the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games later this year were severely dented after the organisers decided to trim the shooting events by doing away with team events and dropping traditional Asiad events like rifle 50m prone (men and women), 50m pistol, 25m centre fire pistol and 25m standard pistol, according media reports.
The decision to reduce the number of events by the organisers follows the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games organisers’ reduction of quotas for shooters and their Birmingham counterparts not including the sport in the 2022 edition list.
India had won one gold, one silver and seven bronze medals in the last edition of the Asian Games. Out of these nine medals, seven were won from the events that are now being dropped.
The organisers have, however, included double trap, which was removed from the Olympics cycle recently.
“There is no logic to this decision. It isn’t just bad for us, but also bad for many countries,” National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) president Raninder Singh told The Times of India.
“We had information of them dropping the double trap event. We spoke to people in the Asian Shooting Confederation and the event was restored, but we had no clue of them dropping so many events, without consulting any other country or the Olympic Council of Asia,” he was quoted as saying.
Former Asian Games gold medallist Jaspal Rana also criticised the organisers for removing the events.
“I see a pattern. They (organisers) have been dropping competitions in which Indians have been doing well and winning medals,” he told The Tribune.
“Same thing happened in CWG and now this. I think we should boycott these games. Same thing may happen in badminton, wrestling. The government and the federation should now stand up against this,” he added.
“I can still understand if they said these events are not on the Olympics programme and that’s why they were dropped. But they retained double trap. Where is the logic behind it? Double trap is not on the Olympics programme too,” he said.
Dropped events
- For Men: 25m centre fire pistol (individual and team); 25m rapid fire (team); 25m standard pistol (individual and team); 50m pistol (individual and team); 10m air pistol (team); 10m air rifle (team); 50m prone (individual and team); 50m 3P (team); trap (team); double trap (team) and skeet (team).
- For Women: 25m pistol (team); 10m air pistol (team); 10m air rifle (team); 50m prone (individual and team); 50m 3P (team); trap (team); double trap (team) and skeet (team).
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