Indian shooters take aim in World Cup with an eye on Olympics

The International Shooting Sports Federation (ISSF) World Cup here from Thursday will be the last chance for 15 Indian shooters to test their skills for the Jul 23-Aug 8 Olympic Games in Japan.

The Croatia World Cup will be organised in all three disciplines -- rifle, pistol and shotgun.

India have won five Olympic quota places in pistol events, eight in rifle and two in skeet during the 2019 Olympic qualification cycle.

The Indian shooters, who are on a short training-cum-competition stint in Europe to prepare for the Olympics, had last month also competed in the European Shooting Championships in Osijek in Minimum Qualification Score (MQS) category.

India's high performance rifle coach Deepali Deshpande had expressed her satisfaction over the team's performance in Osijek. "It was a good performance overall considering the shooters had a break after the New Delhi World Cup in March," Deepali had said.

While Deepak Kumar, Divyansh Singh Panwar, Sanjeev Rajput, Aishwary Pratap Tomar, Apurvi Chandela, Anjum Moudgil, Elavenil Valavi and Tejaswini Sawant have qualified for the Olympics in rifle shooting events, Abhishek Verma, Saurabh Chaudhary, Manu Bhaker, Rahi Sarnobat and Yashaswini Singh will compete in pistol events in Japan.

Angadvir Singh Bajwa and Mairaj Ahmad Khan have qualified in the men's skeet event for Tokyo.-IANS