The 11 Indian shooters who have qualified for the Olympics in London will compete in the World Cup to be staged at the same venue from April 17 to 28.
The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) had selected the shotgun team earlier, as the team had to first compete in the shotgun World Cup in Tucson, USA, from March 25 to 31.
The NRAI announced the list of shooters for the rifle and pistol events on Thursday, following the selection committee meeting on March 14. In fact, with the cancellation of the Beijing World Cup, all the Indian shooters preparing for the Olympics have opted to compete in the other two World Cups, for rifle and pistol, in Milan and Munich. Air pistol shooter Heena Sidhu will be the lone exception as she has planned to skip the Milan World Cup.
Quite notably, the World Cup in London, to be hosted as a test event prior to the Games in a temporary range at the Royal Artillery Barracks, has not made any provision for shooters to compete in the MQS section. The NRAI has added two MQS shooters in each event for the World Cups in Milan and Munich, and has stated that the final selection of the contingent would be subject to government clearance. The two World Cups are scheduled to be staged back-to-back in May and June.
The squad: Men : Gagan Narang, Sanjeev Rajput, Imran Hasan Khan, Joydeep Karmakar, Sushil Ghaley, Abhinav Bindra, Satyendra Singh, Omkar Singh, Amanpreet Singh, Vijay Kumar, Pemba Tamang, Gurpreet Singh, Om Prakash, P.N. Prakash.
Women : Lajja Gauswami, Rajkumari Rathore, Raj Chaudhary, Mampi Das, Anjali Bhagwat, Ayonika Paul, Heena Sidhu, Annuraj Singh, Shweta Chaudhary, Rahi Sarnobat, Anisa Sayyed.
Squad for Shotgun World Cup: Men : Manavjit Singh Sandhu, Anirudh Singh, Anwer Sultan; Ronjan Sodhi, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Sangram Dahiya; Allan Daniel Peoples, Man Singh, Mairaj Ahmad Khan. MQS : Mansher Singh, Prithviraj Tondaiman, Shayan Masood, Ankur Mittal, Smit Singh, Sheeraz Sheikh.
Women : Shagun Chowdhary, Seema Tomar, Varsha Varman, Rashmee Rathore, Arti Singh, Saniya Sheikh. MQS : Shreyasi Singh, Varsha Tomar.
