Guns and glory at the Commonwealth Games

With big names bound to grab attention once the Commonwealth Games kick off in New Delhi, Indian shooters, who topped the table last time, will be vying for top-honours once again.

Indian shooters had dominated the proceedings in the Melbourne Games in 2006 winning 27 medals; including 16 gold, seven silver and four bronze medals.

The contingent that boasts of many bigwigs of the sport - Abhinav Bindra, Gagan Narang, Tejaswini Sawant, Samaresh Jung, Manavjit Singh Sandhu, Ronjon Sodhi and upcoming talent Asher Noria- is expected to boost the medals’ tally for the country.

Among the four categories - rifle, pistol, shotgun and big bore - the rifle shooters look the strongest.

“Being a rifle coach, I can’t say that pistol and other events are not strong, but I feel rifle has many events, hence we stand a chance to win more medals in the category,” says India’s rifle coach Stansilav Lapidus.

With Narang poised to shoot for medals in the 3position and prone events, his main fight will be in the 10m air rifle event, where he will face Olympic gold medallist Bindra along with other world-class shooters. National coach Sunny Thomas agrees that a fight for the gold will be tough in the men’s 10m air rifle event.

“Both Gagan and Abhinav are shooting extremely well at the moment. Plus, we will have other shooters from around the world and there will be only one gold, so you can imagine how tough it is going to be,” says Thomas.

In the women’s rifle events, world champion Tejaswini Sawant, will be looking to win one more gold at the Games in the prone event. Though the girl from Kolhapur will be a strong contender in the prone event, Kavitha Yadav will look for a podium finish in the 10m air rifle event.

The pistol department will be spearheaded by veteran Samaresh Jung, who had won five gold in the last edition of the Games, he will be accompanied by navyman Omkar Singh, who was seen in a good form during the preparation camp in Pune.

Meanwhile, a mix of experience and young talent will be seen in the double trap event, when Ronjon Singh and Asher Noria will take the field with good chances of winning medals.
Though India has many strong shooters, it will be tough for them to match Melbourne’s performance.

At one hand, the pistol shooters will be going without a specialised coach, the scene is worse for the big bore team, who will be going with zero experience and almost no practice.

“The team was selected a week ago and they hardly got any practice before the event. They didn’t have rifles till sometime back, so in this condition, if they manage to win any medal, it will be a miracle,” admits Thomas.

All said and done, it is now up to the shooters to prove their mettle and win as many medals as they can in the 36 events they participate.