The National Rifle Association of India has postponed the compulsory training camp for its Olympic core group planned in New Delhi from Saturday after taking into the account the situation arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic. On Thursday, a shooting coach at the camp's venue -- Dr. Karni Singh Range -- tested positive for COVID-19 but the development will not force a closure of the facility.
World No 1 Elavenil Valarivan was on Sunday included in a 15-member Indian shooting contingent for the Tokyo Olympics at the expense of quota winner Chinki Yadav, who had claimed a gold in the Delhi World Cup last month.
India's teenage shooting stars Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary smashed the qualification World record before clinching the 10 metres air pistol mixed team gold in the 12th Asian Airgun Championship in Taoyuan, Taipei, on Wednesday.
Olympic medallists PV Sindhu and MC Mary Kom will headline the action for India at the Tokyo Olympic Games on Sunday.
Here are five shooters to watch when the Games formally kick off on July 23
'To win the Olympic gold medal, I have been really working really hard for the past five years now, and it has always been my dream.'
Tokyo Olympics medal prospect Manu Bhaker has demanded action against two Air India employees for allegedly 'harassing' and 'insulting' her while the ace shooter tried to board a flight to Bhopal from Delhi.
Meet India's top athletes at Olympics 2024.
Pistol ace Manu Bhaker has got a new electronic target installed at the makeshift shooting range at her home in Haryana in place of an archaic manual machine that was breaking down frequently and hampering her Olympics preparation. The old machine was causing her "immense irritation".
On Friday, the Indian shooting contingent for Tokyo 2020 reached Amsterdam from their Zagreb base in Croatia. Saurabh Choudhary, Abhishek Verma, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, and Anjum Moudgil headline India's shooting squad.
The Indian women's team comprising of Manu Bhaker, Rhythm Sangwan and Naamya Kapoor, dominated proceedings in the 25m pistol team event at the ISFF Junior World Shooting Championship in Lima, Peru, beating US 16-4 in the gold medal match.
The more experienced Heena Sidhu suffered a similar fate, as she was placed 25th with 571.
It was business as usual for India's top shooters Monday as they competed in the Olympic team selection trials in New Delhi at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has brought daily life to a grinding halt around much of the world. As the world around them battled the coronavirus pandemic, the sound of shots fired from their guns, rifles and their pistols reverberated across the Karni Singh Shooting Range, tucked away in one corner of the national capital.
Humpy bagged the award after receiving the highest number of votes from the fans.
With the athletes bidding goodbye to Paris after another bone-tingling edition of the Olympics, Norma Astrid Godinho/Rediff.com, shares some interesting nuggets that made the Paris Olympics an event to remember!
Sporting icons -- PV Sindhu and MC Mary Kom -- will be the star attractions among the Indians on Day 6 of the Tokyo Olympics on Thursday.
The Indian pair shot a total of 483.5 to finish on top of the podium at the ISSF World Cup.
In awe of the sensational Saurabh Chaudhary, former World championship silver-medallist shooter Jitu Rai feels the reticent youngster has it in him to humble one of the sport's all-time greats, South Korean Jin Jong-Oh, at the Tokyo Olympic Games.
India's batting great Sachin Tendulkar on Tuesday gave his best wishes to India's Olympic-bound contingent and lauded them for continuing their preparations despite the many challenges posed by COVID-19.
While the performance of pistol shooters was creditworthy, their rifle counterparts were at a different level altogether.
India's lone Olympic individual gold medallist Abhinav Bindra on Saturday criticised the selection panel for not nominating seasoned coach Jaspal Rana for the Dronacharya Award.
A few Indian stars will have to go through the disappointment of watching all the action from afar.
Six-time world champion boxer M C Mary Kom, on Monday, said she will donate her one month's salary as Rajya Sabha MP, amounting to Rs 1 lakh, to the Prime Minister's Relief Fund to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.
The Karni Singh Range in New Delhi will be divided into four risk zones to ensure that Olympic-bound shooters can safely resume training at a two-month long national camp which will be conducted from Thursday in a bio-bubble to ward off the COVID-19 threat.
Bhaker beat a two-time World Cup Finals winner and the host country's Alejandra Zavala, with a 10.8 in the last shot of the 24 shot final, to come out on top with a score of 237.5.
Postponement of shooting tournaments, cancellation of trials and training camps hardly matter at this point to one of India's biggest young achievers in sport, Manu Bhaker, who is hoping to see the world win the battle against the coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic has cast serious doubts over the Tokyo Olympic Games but the 18-year-old, a medal prospect at the quadrennial extravaganza, is currently not thinking about things that are beyond her control.
Then the air rifle women's team consisting of Arya Borse, Zeena Khitta and Ramita downed the Korean trio of Yeeun AN, Eunji Kwon and Jeongin Jang 17-9 in the title decider to give India the third gold of the day.
Palak, Esha gold-silver feat makes it a historic day for India
For the second successive time, the Indian shooting team returned from the Olympics empty-handed, belying a billion hopes after promising to deliver like never before.
For someone who took to shooting just a little over two years ago, winning two gold medals at a global event of this magnitude would easily qualify as some achievement.
Manu won the women's 10m Air Pistol on day three of competition while Saurabh bagged a team gold in the men's event.
However, Manu Bhaker and Abhishek Verma failed to qualify for the final of 10m mixed air pistol event.
India's 24-member shooting contingent topped the medals tally in the first Asian Online Shooting Championship.
The initiative by SAI is part of ongoingefforts of the government to help young athletes balance their sporting career and academics.
Some of the world's elite shooters will transform their living rooms into competition ranges on April 15 for a first-of-its-kind international online championship, the coronavirus lockdown triggering another out of the box thinking. An electronic target setup, beside a mobile phone with internet connection, is all they require to shoot in the championship.
The war of words between the duo started after the 16-year-old athlete took to Twitter questioning Vij about the 2 crore cash reward, the latter had promised after she won a gold medal at the 2018 Youth Olympics at Argentina.
India have done reasonably well in the quadrennial continental event, only twice finishing outside the top eight since hosting the first Asiad in 1951.
Manu Baker won two gold medals in as many days on a World Cup debut
Gagan Narang, Jitu Rai and young Mehuli Ghosh failed to make the Indian shooting squad for the upcoming Asian Games, even as a few unheralded faces were picked for the quadrennial extravaganza, starting in Indonesia, from August 18.
India opened its medal account with a gold each in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed and 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team events on the third day of competitions at the ISSF Shooting World Cup.
