Tokyo Olympics: World No 1 in 10m Air Rifle, Elavenil Valarivan and pistol shooter Manu Bhaker will lead India’s charge in shooting the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) announced the team on Sunday. Youngster Sourabh Choudhary will lead men’s charge and will look to end India’s gold draught in the Olympics.
Reigning world number one in Women’s 10M Air Rifle Elavenil Valarivan, was the only athlete to have been picked in the team, who had not won, one of the 15-quotas won by the National Team. She would avail of the quota won by Anjum Moudgil in the event.
It was also decided by the National Selection Committee that the quota won by Chinki Yadav in the Women’s 25M Pistol would be swapped in favour of Anjum Moudgil, to enable her to compete in the Women’s 50M Rifle 3 Positions event as India’s second entry alongside former World Champion Tejaswini Sawant. The quota won for the nation can only be swapped within the same gender.
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Anjum would also compete in the Mixed Air Rifle Team competition alongside Deepak Kumar as India’s second team in the event. Elavenil and Divyansh would form the first pairing. Apurvi Chandela, therefore, competes only in the Women’s 10M Air Rifle individual competition.
The 15-member Indian squad has Manu Bhaker competing in three different categories. Bhaker, whose overall performances in the Women’s 25M Pistol had been better, the committee felt, would take advantage of the double-start rule and compete in both the Women’s 10M Air Pistol and the 25M Pistol individual events.
The selection committee after a meeting on Sunday afternoon which lasted over five hours, also announced a set of 14 reserve shooters for each of the eligible events, particularly with an eye on the raging COVID-19 pandemic, as had been suggested last month by the NRAI president Raninder Singh.
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Commenting on the team, Singh said, “The National Selection Committee’s main focus was to select the strongest squad for the Games and to ensure that the most consistent performers in each event, during the course of this entire Olympic cycle, do not miss out.
I believe they have done an excellent job on both those fronts and we are confident that this selection will deliver. The selection I believe has been done purely on merit and in keeping with the provisions of NRAI’s Olympic selection ranking policy. This merit-based approach has enabled us to field a third specialist shooter in the Women’s 10M Air Rifle events as well as go with the two best shooters in Women’s 25M Pistol event.”
Tokyo Olympics India shooting team:
Men: 10m Air Rifle: Divyansh Singh Panwar, Deepak Kumar. Reserves: Sandeep Singh, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar.
50m rifle 3-position: Sanjeev Rajput, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar. Reserves: Swapnil Kusale, Chain Singh.
10m air pistol: Saurabh Chaudhary, Abhishek Verma. Reserves: Shahzar Rizvi, Om Prakash Mitharval.
Skeet: Angad Vir Singh Bajwa, Mairaj Ahmad Khan. Reserves: Gurjoat Singh Khangura, Sheeraz Sheikh.
Women: 10m air rifle: Apurvi Chandela, Elavenil Valarivan. Reserves: Anjum Moudgil, Shreya Agrawal.
50m rifle 3-position: Anjum Moudgil, Tejaswini Sawant. Reserves: Sunidhi Chauhan, Gaayathri Nithyanandam.
10m air pistol: Manu Bhaker, Yashaswini Singh Deswal. Reserves: P Shri Nivetha, Shweta Singh.
25m sports pistol: Rahi Sarnobat, Manu Bhaker. Reserves: Chinki Yadav, Abhidnya Patil.
Mixed Team: 10m air rifle: Divyan Singh Panwar, Elavenil Valarivan; Deepak Kumar, Anjum Moudgil.
10m air pistol: Saurabh Chaudhary, Manu Bhaker; Abhishek Verma, Yashaswini Singh Deswal.
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