Harpal Singh Bedi / New Delhi
A few comebacks and some new faces will be in focus as India renew their quest for more Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games quota places in the year’s fourth and final International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup in Rio De Janerio from Wednesday,
India ,has already secured seven quota places so far across the two disciplines. It will be world number one and world record holder Apurvi Chandela and world number two Anjum Moudgil, both of whom have already bagged Tokyo quotas for country, who would set the ball rolling for India in the Women’s 10m Air Rifle.
This is one of the two events, the other being the Men’s 10m Air Pistol, where India would only be fighting for the coveted ISSF world cup medals, having already exhausted the maximum possible ‘two berths per event per country’.
Promising youngster Elavenil Valarivan, who has won almost everything there is to win in her junior years, will also renew her search for a first ISSF senior world cup medal in the same event as India’s third entry. She is still in her debut senior year and has a fourth place finish in the first world cup stage in Delhi earlier in the year.
Qualification rounds for the Men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positionsand the Women’s 25m Pistolare also slated to begin on Wednesday with the Women’s Air Rifle being the only final of the day.
A 34-member Indian squad, including nine shooters in the non-competition MQS (Minimum Qualification Score) section, will be seen in action at the Rio World Cup stage over six competition days.
There are a total of 16 Tokyo 2020 quota places up for grabs in Rio across eight individual Olympic events on the schedule.
India has booked Tokyo 2020 berths through Apurvi Chandela (10m Air Rifle Women), Anjum Moudgil (10m Air Rifle Women), Rahi Sarnobat (25m Pistol Women), Manu Bhaker (10m Air Pistol Women), Saurabh Chaudhary (10m Air Pistol Men), Abhishek Verma (10m Air Pistol Men) and Divyansh Singh Panwar (10m Air Rifle Men). As such these athletes are not eligible to win quota places any more.