Indian shooters Tejaswini Sawant (right) and Gagan Narang (left) pose with their Kazakh coach Stanislav after winning the medals at the World Shooting Championships in Munich. (AFP Photo)
Thirty six shooters, 120 medals at stake. Three dozen Indians will be in the spotlight as they try to clinch a big bounty of medals at the Commonwealth Games.
Indeed, shooting is certain to provide the hosts with more medals than any other discipline at the Delhi Games, making this sport critical to India's overall performance.
It was a completely different scenario less than a decade back, till the 2002 Games in Manchester. A medal here and one there was what the shooting contingent used to manage in earlier attempts in the sport which was introduced in CWG in 1966 Kingston Games.
But things changed dramatically at Manchester, where the world came to know, probably for the first time, the potential of the Indian shooters.
Fourteen of the 30 gold India won at those Games were clinched by the shooters. Since then, there's no looking back. They continued their stupendous show in the next Games, at Melbourne, claiming an impressive 16 of the 22 gold medals the country won.
Pistol shooter Samaresh Jung alone won five of them, earning the 'Best Athlete of the Games' award and also the sobriquet 'Goldfinger'.
Quite expectedly, hopes are high this time too. "At Delhi, we hope our shooters to fetch us the bulk of the medals. We expect the 36 shooters to win at least 30 medals," said a source closely associated with the preparation of the teams.
Can our shooters achieve this target?
Some of them are unhappy about preparations ahead of the Games. They say that preparation before the Melbourne Games was much better than what they are having for Delhi.
"Take the case of pistol shooting. The shooters don't have a specialised coach. They are training on their own," said a shooter requesting anonymity. "How can we say this is ideal preparation?"
Some others say that they would, like many other Indians sportspersons, would not have home advantage since they rarely got a chance to practice at venues where the events will be held.
Indian shooters won't get to use the ranges before September 23 and till then the shooters would continue to train at Balewadi, Pune. There's still a lot of work left to be done there, both infrastructural and otherwise.
The organisers have promised to complete everything by September 23, but then, what purpose will it serve? "There will be no time left for us to practise there. It will be like a foreign range for us," chief national coach Sunny Thomas told TOI.
There's also the issue of selection, with a new rule focussing more on current form than past performance. The fear is that some of the reputed shooters, who have not done well recently, might not get a berth under the new selection process.
One doesn't even know who will be firing for the country at present. However, things would be clear once the team is announced, on September 1.
One good thing is that the shooters have had several exposure tours abroad to keep them in competitive trim. "We've spent about Rs 10 crore on the exposure trips for shooters," informed Rahul Bhatnagar, joint secretary, international sports division in the sports ministry.
The fans would be eager to see the likes of Abhinav Bindra, Gagan Narang, Manavjit Sandhu, Ronjan Sodhi, RVS Rathore, Tejaswini Sawant shoot down gold for the country. One hopes, the Karni Singh range will reverberate with golden echoes.
Key Indians
Men: Abhinav Bindra, Gagan Narang, Manavjit Singh Sandhu, RVS Rathore, Ronjan Sodhi, Samaresh Jung.
Women: Anjali Bhagwat, Anuja Jung, Avneet Kaur Sidhu, Suma Shirur, Tejaswini Sawant. *(Squad will be selected on Sept. 1)
Top foreign stars: Michael Gault ( England), Warren Potent ( Australia), Lalita Yauhleuskaya (Australia).
Core Group: Men: 71 I Women: 40
Indian coaches: 13 I Foreign coaches: 2 I Supporting personnel: 4 I Foreign exposure trips: 28 I Spend on foreign exposure: Rs 10 crore I Medals expected: 30
Indeed, shooting is certain to provide the hosts with more medals than any other discipline at the Delhi Games, making this sport critical to India's overall performance.
It was a completely different scenario less than a decade back, till the 2002 Games in Manchester. A medal here and one there was what the shooting contingent used to manage in earlier attempts in the sport which was introduced in CWG in 1966 Kingston Games.
But things changed dramatically at Manchester, where the world came to know, probably for the first time, the potential of the Indian shooters.
Fourteen of the 30 gold India won at those Games were clinched by the shooters. Since then, there's no looking back. They continued their stupendous show in the next Games, at Melbourne, claiming an impressive 16 of the 22 gold medals the country won.
Pistol shooter Samaresh Jung alone won five of them, earning the 'Best Athlete of the Games' award and also the sobriquet 'Goldfinger'.
Quite expectedly, hopes are high this time too. "At Delhi, we hope our shooters to fetch us the bulk of the medals. We expect the 36 shooters to win at least 30 medals," said a source closely associated with the preparation of the teams.
Can our shooters achieve this target?
Some of them are unhappy about preparations ahead of the Games. They say that preparation before the Melbourne Games was much better than what they are having for Delhi.
"Take the case of pistol shooting. The shooters don't have a specialised coach. They are training on their own," said a shooter requesting anonymity. "How can we say this is ideal preparation?"
Some others say that they would, like many other Indians sportspersons, would not have home advantage since they rarely got a chance to practice at venues where the events will be held.
Indian shooters won't get to use the ranges before September 23 and till then the shooters would continue to train at Balewadi, Pune. There's still a lot of work left to be done there, both infrastructural and otherwise.
The organisers have promised to complete everything by September 23, but then, what purpose will it serve? "There will be no time left for us to practise there. It will be like a foreign range for us," chief national coach Sunny Thomas told TOI.
There's also the issue of selection, with a new rule focussing more on current form than past performance. The fear is that some of the reputed shooters, who have not done well recently, might not get a berth under the new selection process.
One doesn't even know who will be firing for the country at present. However, things would be clear once the team is announced, on September 1.
One good thing is that the shooters have had several exposure tours abroad to keep them in competitive trim. "We've spent about Rs 10 crore on the exposure trips for shooters," informed Rahul Bhatnagar, joint secretary, international sports division in the sports ministry.
The fans would be eager to see the likes of Abhinav Bindra, Gagan Narang, Manavjit Sandhu, Ronjan Sodhi, RVS Rathore, Tejaswini Sawant shoot down gold for the country. One hopes, the Karni Singh range will reverberate with golden echoes.
Key Indians
Men: Abhinav Bindra, Gagan Narang, Manavjit Singh Sandhu, RVS Rathore, Ronjan Sodhi, Samaresh Jung.
Women: Anjali Bhagwat, Anuja Jung, Avneet Kaur Sidhu, Suma Shirur, Tejaswini Sawant. *(Squad will be selected on Sept. 1)
Top foreign stars: Michael Gault ( England), Warren Potent ( Australia), Lalita Yauhleuskaya (Australia).
Core Group: Men: 71 I Women: 40
Indian coaches: 13 I Foreign coaches: 2 I Supporting personnel: 4 I Foreign exposure trips: 28 I Spend on foreign exposure: Rs 10 crore I Medals expected: 30
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