New Delhi: Reigning Men’s 10m Air Rifle World Champion Rudrankksh Patil returned to the squad as the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI), the governing body of the Olympic sport of Shooting in India, announced the Indian rifle and pistol squads for the upcoming international competitions.
The same squad witth minor chances will participate in the upcoming World Championships in August in Baku, Azerbaijan and the Hangzhou Asian Games in China the month after. The Shotgun squad had been announced earlier. A 22-member Rifle and Pistol squad will travel to Baku to vie for as many as 32 Paris Olympic quota places up for grabs there while a 21-member squad will make the trip to Hangzhou the NRAI announced in a release on Saturday.
Rudrankksh Patil has been included in the Asian Games squad basis the selection criteria for Paris quota winners. Ashi Chouksey also replaced Tilottama Sen in the Women’s Air Rifle squad in Hangzhou. She will be shooting both the Women’s Rifle events, given none of the top three Women’s Air Rifle shooters shot the three positions (3P) event and the Asian Games allows for only five entries each in Men’s and Women’s Rifle events. Ashi got the nod as the highest-ranked Air Rifle shooter in the Women’s 3P squad.
The rest of the selection followed the rankings post the National Selection Trials 5 & 6 for Group A Rifle and Pistol shooters which concluded at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range on Friday.
The squad:
Air Rifle Men: Divyansh Singh Panwar, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Hriday Hazarika
Air Rifle Women: Ramita, Mehuli Ghosh, Tilottama Sen
50m Rifle 3p Men: Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Akhil Sheoran, Niraj Kumar
50m Rifle 3p Women: Sift Kaur, Samra, Ashi Chouksey
Air Pistol Men: Sarabjot Singh, Shiva Narwal, Arjun Singh Cheema Air Pistol Women: Divya T.S, Esha Singh, Palak
25m Rapid Fire Pistol Junior Men: Anish, Vijayveer Sidhu, Adarsh Singh 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Junior Women: Rhythm Sangwan, Manu Bhaker, Esha Singh
Air Rifle Junior Mixed Team: Divyansh Singh Panwar/Ramita; Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar/ Mehuli Ghosh
Air Pistol Junior Mixed Team: Sarabjot Singh, Divya T.S; Shiva Narwal/Esha Singh.—IANS