The festival atmosphere at the Dr. Karni Singh Range in Tughlakabad is expected to hit a high with more than 100 shooters scheduled to compete in the event in the ongoing 54th National shooting championship on Thursday.
World champion Manavjit Singh Sandhu along with other seasoned shooters like Mansher Singh, Zoravar Singh Sandhu, Anwer Sultan, Birendeep Singh Sodhi, and a clutch of other talented shooters will be keen to capitalise on the opportunity, in the season-opener that is set to form the foundation for National selection.
Beehive of activity
The range was a beehive of activity on Wednesday with the shotgun marksmen tuning up for the challenge ahead.
There will be as many as 19 groups of shooters competing in five ranges, and will shoot three rounds of the qualification series.
Action will continue on the next day with two more rounds followed by the final for the top six in the men's event.
The women, expected to be 14, that is if they turn up in strength on the morrow, will shoot three rounds of qualification followed by the final.
Since women's double trap is not part of the Olympic stream, there were only five entries and most of them were regular trap shooters, doubling up for the second event.
Lack of entries
In fact, the junior women's double trap event had only three entries, and it was originally decided to give only two medals.
The idea was revised later during the medal ceremony and Varsha Varman of Bhopal who had lost the tie-shoot to Asiya F. Khilji of Tamil Nadu after the two had shot 60 behind Shreyasi's 90, was also presented the bronze medal.
Varsha Varman will compete in the trap event as well, having qualified through the Mavlankar championship.
Return of Rana
While the shotgun ranges have warmed up with impressive performances, there was excitement at the rifle and pistol ranges, as Jaspal Rana, who had won an individual gold in the Asian Games as an 18-year-old in 1994 in Hiroshima, has opted to get out of a self-inflicted hiatus to compete in the rapidfire pistol event.
After winning three golds in the Asian Games in Doha in 2006, including individual events in centrefire and standard pistol, Rana had quit the sport as he was busy with many activities, including forays into politics.
It is a good sign that he has found the hunger to compete in an event which not only suits his temperament but also in which he had won the National title long ago.
Rana had competed in the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996, but it will call for a lot of disciplined training for him to make an attempt to qualify for the London Olympics.
If anything, Rana's return in the rapidfire event may force champion Vijay Kumar, with a World Cup silver to his credit, to pull up his performance, particularly after the below par fare in the recent Asian Games in which he did strike two bronze medals in air pistol and centrefire pistol.
