Competition will be stiff, says Jung

He was the hero of the last Commonwealth Games, winning seven medals including five gold, but pistol shooter Samaresh Jung said that he was not looking at the medals this time in the Commonwealth Shooting Championship, set for inauguration on Thursday.

Restricted to two events — air pistol and standard pistol — owing to a stringent selection process, Jung said that he was viewing the championship as a good platform to launch his campaign for the season.

Conceding that he was not in his best form, Jung said that it was a good competition in which one had a fair chance to beat the field, though one had to really work for it.

He was categorical that there were some good shooters from abroad, including Sri Lanka and that the Indian shooters would have to sweat it out to be able to repeat their success in the last Commonwealth Games where they won gold medals.

Narang confident

The other shooting star of the last edition, Gagan Narang, who had won four gold medals each in the Commonwealth Games and Commonwealth Championship in Melbourne, exuded confidence about improving his record to even six medals as he was competing in three events.

However, Jung knows that Warren Potent of Australia, the Olympic bronze medalist in Beijing, and champion in six World Cups apart from a World Cup final, will be the hot favourite in the 50-metre rifle prone event.

Narang, who has shed more than 10 kilograms in recent times, said that it was a challenge for him to shuffle between two sets of equipment. Though he was looking forward to the World Cups, Narang said that he was keen to give his best in the event at home and enhance the team's tally.

He pointed out that Australia was keen to get to the host and pay back for all the losses, but said that it would be important for him to keep his cool, particularly in the wind-swept 50-metre range, that could drive anyone crazy.

In with a chance

National coach Prof. Sunny Thomas said that there would be more chances for Indian shooters, as there were vacancies in three pistol events, which had only eight entries each, and the shotgun events for men.

There will be “zero shooters” filling up those spots, and they could be world record holder Ronjan Sodhi in double trap and Jung in one of the pistol events, for which he has not qualified — like free pistol or centre-fire pistol.

There will be two “zero shooters” in double trap, one in trap and five in skeet. The authorities are in the process of contacting the shooters to ascertain their availability and willingness to shoot even if their scores would not count.

The fate of the rapid fire pistol event which has only four entries is not known. The criteria for awarding medals in individual and team events that do not meet the minimum eligibility criteria in terms of number of entries had also not been decided upon by the authorities.

Chaos

With the private vehicles being denied entry into the range, the shooters depended on the official buses to reach the venue, and had to endure long delays. In fact, a bus load of volunteers from Army, trained shooters themselves, were denied entry at the range for hours, for lack of accreditation though they had been at the range the previous day as well.

Quite understandably, the shooters have resigned to the fact that it would be some time before things settle down and helps them focus purely on their shooting.