After a delayed start to the season due to the outbreak of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, India’s Olympic shooters get a busy 2022 underway at the ISSF World Cup in Cairo that begins on Monday. Here’s what to watch out for.
Who is in the Indian team?
The Indian team for the Cairo World Cup is a largely new-look one. This is mainly a consequence of the inability to conduct fresh selection trials due to COVID-19. After the trials — originally scheduled in January — were postponed and subsequently cancelled, the NRAI decided to send the winners of the last edition of the shooting Nationals. As a result, only five of the 15 Indians who competed at the Tokyo Olympics are in the team for Cairo.
Notably missing are multiple World Cup winners like Manu Bhaker and Apurvi Chandela, who have been regular members of the Indian contingent at the World Cups over the previous Olympic cycle. Indeed nine of the shooters in the 21-member squad are going to be competing in their first ISSF World Cup.
What’s the field like?
The 2022 World Cup in Cairo is the first world-level competition in international shooting following the Olympics last year. With little at stake — the first qualification event for the 2024 Olympics will be the 2022 World Championships — the field at the World Cup, especially in a non Olympic year, isn’t usually the strongest. In Cairo, the field will be further weakened by the absence of China, who won 11 medals at the Tokyo Olympics. Other Olympic medallists whose teams are taking part, such as double Olympic champion Vitalina Batsarashkina of Russia, have also opted out. The men’s 10m air rifle field is particularly weak with none of the medallists from Tokyo competing in Cairo. However other categories such as the men’s 10m pistol event and 25m pistol where Olympic medallists Javad Foroughi and Damir Mikec have confirmed their participation.
What are the new rules?
Cairo will be the first ISSF World Cup event to feature the new competition format introduced by the International Shooting Sport Federation last year, which now includes semi-finals.
In the old system, shooters competed in an initial qualifying round and subsequent final, for which the top eight shooters made the cut. The new format comprises a point-based scoring system, where after the top eight shooters come through the qualification stage, they are split into two semi-finals of four shooters each and the top two progress to a medal match where the scoring starts from zero.
In the semi-final, instead of each shot being added to a consolidated score, each shot will be scored separately — the best shot gets four points and successive scores getting three, two and one points. What this means is that even a poor shot, which might previously have doomed a shooter in the finals, would no longer be a fatal error. The qualification process in the 50m rifle 3 position event has also been changed, where instead of shooting 120 shots, athletes will shoot two qualification stages of 60 shots each (divided into twenty shots each in the prone, kneeling and standing position) — a switch that coaches predict will challenge shooters time management skills.
What is at stake?
With no Olympic qualification at stake and no selection trials held to select the team, there’s no guarantee that many of the athletes competing for India in Cairo would be seen once again this season. This possibility seems even more likely with the NRAI announcing that shooters will be only allowed to compete in two out of four World Cups in the year. There are plenty of Indian shooters who excelled at World Cups in a non-Olympic year, like Shahzar Rizvi who won gold in the 2018 season opener at Guadalajara, who are no longer amongst the team regulars. However, a World Cup medal is still a major international medal and the squad in Cairo, which features a number of upcoming players, will be looking to make a mark.
Squad
Individual events
50M Rifle 3 Positions Men
Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Akhil Sheoran, Kiran Ankush Jadhav, Sanjeev Rajput.
10M Air Rifle Men
Divyash Singh Panwar, Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil, Srinjoy Datta.
25M Rapid Fire Pistol Men
Anish, Bhavesh Shekhawat, Gurpreet Singh.
10M Air Pistol Men
Kedarling Balakrishna Uchaganve, Saurabh Chaudhary, Gaurav Rana Pradhyumn Singh.
50M Rifle 3 Positions Women
Sift Kaur Samra, Shriyanka Sadangi.
10M Air Rifle Women
Shreya Agrawal, Aayushi Gupta, Rajshree Sancheti.
25M Sports Pistol Women
Rhythm Sangwan, Esha Singh, Rahi Sarnobat.
10M Air Pistol Women
Esha Singh, P Shri Nivetha, Ruchita Vinerkar.
Team events
50M Rifle 3 Positions Men’s Team
Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Akhil Sheoran, Kiran Ankush Jadhav.
10M Air Rifle Men’s Team
Divyansh Singh Panwar, Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil, Srinjoy Datta.
25M Rapid Fire Pistol Men’s Team
Anish, Bhavesh Shekhawat, Gurpreet Singh.
10M Air Pistol Men’s Team
Kedarling Balakrishna Uchaganve, Saurabh Chaudhary, Gaurav Rana.
10M Air Rifle Women’s Team
Shreya Agrawal, Aayushi Gupta, Rajshree Sancheti.
25M Sports Pistol Women’s Team
Rhythm Sangwan, Esha Singh, Rahi Sarnobat.
10M Air Pistol Women’s Team
Esha Singh, P Shri Nivetha, Ruchita Vinerkar.
Mixed team events
50M Rifle 3 Positions Mixed Team
Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Sift Kaur Samra.
Akhil Sheoran, Shriyanka Sadangi.
10M Air Rifle Mixed Team
Divyansh Singh Panwar, Shreya Agrawal.
Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil, Aayushi Gupta.
25M Rapid Fire Pistol Mixed Team
Anish, Rhythm Sangwan.
Bhavesh Shekhawat, Esha Singh.
10M Air Pistol Mixed Team
Kedarling Balakrishna Uchaganve, Esha Singh.
Saurabh Chaudhary, P Shri Nivetha.
