A 33-member Indian shooting team will take part in the 19th Asian Games 2023 in Hangzhou, China, beginning September 23, the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) said on Saturday. The NRAI also announced on the day a 35-member team for the Asian Championships in Changwon, South Korea, which will be held from October 22 to November 2.
The competition assumes significance as a total of 24 Paris Olympics quota places are there to be won, two in each of the 12 individual Olympic events across the three disciplines of rifle, pistol and shotgun. India will feature in all 16 events, including four mixed team events in the Asian Championships and will also be fielding four additional shooters — Rudrankksh Patil, Mehuli Ghosh, Sift Kaur Samra and Rajeshwari Kumari — who will compete for ranking points only.
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These four shooters have already secured Paris quotas and are ineligible to win quotas as a result. The shooting squad has so far won seven quota places for the Paris Games and will look to pick up their first quotas in pistol and skeet events at the Asian Championships, besides filling their remaining berths in the rifle and trap disciplines.
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For the likes of Manu Bhaker, Divyansh Singh Panwar, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Akhil Sheoran, Rhythm Sangwan, Esha Singh, Adarsh Singh, Kynan Chenai, Ganemat Sekhon to name a few, the tournament in Changwon will be another opportunity to secure quotas for next summer’s Paris Games after an unsuccessful outing in the recently-concluded World Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Overall, India have so far won seven Paris quota places. Bhowneesh Mendiratta (men’s trap), Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil (men’s 10m air rifle) and Swapnil Kusale (men’s 50m rifle 3 positions) are the other three Indians to have secured the 2024 Olympic quota places at last year’s ISSF World Championship.
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