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What's the story?
India will be hosting the Commonwealth shooting and archery championships in 2022. The medals from the two events will added to the final medal tally at the 2022 Commonwealth Games to be held in Birmingham.
In case you didn't know
The 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games Organising Committee had excluded shooting from the list of sports to be included as part of the Games.
This was a major setback for India due to their proud record in shooting. India had bagged 16 medals including 7 Gold medals in shooting at the 2018 Commonwealth Games held in Gold Coast, Australia. This even prompted the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) to consider pulling out from the 2022 Commonwealth Games but this idea was dropped subsequently with a proposal to host the Commonwealth shooting and archery championships in India.
Shooting and archery are not part of the core group of 16 sports that are mandatory at the Commonwealth Games (CWG). They are part of the list of optional sports that the host nation can pick to be added to the Games programme.
Shooting has been part of every CWG since the 1966 Games in Kingston with the exception of the 1970 Games in Edinburgh. Archery on the other had, has only been part of 2 editions of the CWG - 1982 in Brisbane and 2010 in New Delhi.
Heart of the matter
India will be hosting the Commonwealth shooting and archery championships at Chandigarh in January 2022. This is a major win for India as the medals from the two events will be added to the final medal tally at the 2022 Commonwealth Games to be held in Birmingham.
The announcement came after this decision was taken at the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) Executive Board meeting held from February 21 to 23.
"A Commonwealth Archery and Shooting Championships is set to take place in India in 2022 after a proposal to stage the event was approved by the CGF Executive Board," the CGF said in a release.
However the CGF added that the medals from these 2 competitions to be held in January 2022 will only be added to the final CWG medal tally one week after the closing ceremony of the Birmingham Games that are scheduled from 27th July to 7th August 2022.
"One week following the Closing Ceremony of Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, the CGF shall issue a medal table that includes results from the Chandigarh 2022 Commonwealth Archery and Shooting Championships, as a further and final legitimate ranking of competing nations and territories from the respective competitions"
The Indian government has also given the approval to host these two championships. The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) will largely bear the cost of hosting the shooting championship while the Indian Government will solely fund the the archery event.
What's next?
The announcement of the Commonwealth shooting and archery championships to be held in India will bring great joy to the Indian shooters and archers as well as the millions of sports lovers in India.
We hope that this great news in the Olympic year is a morale booster for the Indian shooters and archers and they go on bring greater laurels for the country at the upcoming 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
