To London via Germany

Though most of the 11 Indian shooters have been training around the world, three of the pistol shooters will leave with the coaches, for a final training stint in Hannover, Germany, on Friday.

Rapid fire pistol specialist Vijay Kumar, air pistol shooter Annu Raj Singh and sport pistol shooter Rahi Sarnobat, who have been training in Pune, will be leaving for the German stint.

Gagan Narangwho will be competing in the air rifle, prone and 3-position events, was also scheduled to leave along with the other three but has opted to join the squad in Germany.

Another rifle shooter in the free rifle 3-position event, Sanjeev Rajput, has been training with Mirosavljev Nemanja of Serbia in Belgrade, and pistol shooter Heena Sidhu, preparing in Germany with mental trainer Dr. Pierre Beauchamp, would join the squad directly.

Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra and free rifle prone shooter Joydeep Karmakar have been training in Germany, while shotgun shooters Manavjit Singh Sandhu, Ronjan Sodhi and Shagun Chowdhary have been training in Italy with coach Marcello Dradi.

Prof. Sunny Thomas said Bindra would check into the Games Village as soon as it opened for athletes in about 10 days, and would head back to his training base after a few days of acclimatisation.

The squad is scheduled to reach London on July 21. Rifle coach Stanislav Lapidus, pistol coaches Anatoli Piddubniy and Pavel Smirnov, shotgun coach Marcello Dradi and national coach Prof. Thomas are tipped to be the five coaches officially accompanying the squad.