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13 members of India's Tokyo Olympics 2020 shooting contingent from the Rifle and Pistol squads are all set to begin their engagements at the year’s final International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun stage in Osijek, Croatia.
The first day of the competition has four finals (all the individual 10M Air events in Rifle and Pistol) lined up and will see as many as 11-Indians vying for the coveted ISSF World Cup medal.
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This will be their final international assignment before the quadrennial showpiece in the Japanese capital, whose opening ceremony is scheduled to start less than a month away.
Indians in Day 1 of ISSF World Cup
India fielded three shooters in each of the four medal events on Thursday, barring the Men’s 10M Air Pistol, where they have two shooters in Abhishek Verma and Saurabh Chaudhary (World No. 1 and World No. 2 respectively).
The day will begin with the 10M Air Rifle men’s competition where India’s Deepak Kumar and World No. 2 Divyansh Singh Panwar will attempt to qualify for the eight-man final. They will also be joined by Three Positions (3P) exponent Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, thereby enabling them to also compete for the Men’s Team event.
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That will be followed by the Women’s 10M Air Rifle qualifiers where Elavenil Valarivan, the current World No. 1, will start alongside teammates Apurvi Chandela and Anjum Moudgil.
Rahi Sarnobat, Manu Bhaker and Yashaswini Deswal will feature in the Women’s 10M Air Pistol qualifiers. The event is sandwiched between the two Air Rifle finals.
Verma and Chaudhary will compete in the Men’s 10M Air Pistol qualifiers. It is scheduled in between the Women’s Rifle and Pistol finals.
A total of 520 shooting athletes from 47 countries have assembled in Osijek. They will be taking a total of 1134 starts.
Big names at 2021 ISSF World Cup
The world’s top shooters including strong contingents from shooting heavyweights like Russia, Germany, France and Italy, along with hosts Croatia, will be looking to fine-tune their skills before heading to next month's Tokyo Games.
Some of the top names to watch out for besides the Indian stars would be the likes of Olympic and world champion Anna Korakakki of Greece, reigning Olympic champion Christian Reitz of Germany and World No. 1 Rifle Istvan Peni of Hungary, as well as such shooting legends as Rajmond Debevec of Slovenia.
India will send 15 shooters to the Summer Olympic Games this time around and the 13 at Osijek have been training in Croatia for close to two months now. The remaining two Skeet shooters for Tokyo, Mairaj Khan and Angad Bajwa, are training in Italy and have opted out of the World Cup based on advice from their coaches. This leaves India without an entry into the Shotgun category.
India have off-late dominated the ISSF World Cups, particularly in Rifle and Pistol events, and have finished on top of the medal tally in the previous New Delhi stage of the World Cup as well.
More medals are naturally expected from the Indians over the next nine days of competition. There are a total of 30 finals lined up in that period.
Read Also: ISSF World Cup 2021: Full schedule for Tokyo Olympics Qualification event
