Shooting World Cup Finals 2023: Indian shooters gun for the big prize

Some of the country’s leading shooters Rudrankksh Patil, Mehuli Ghosh, Esha Singh, Prithviraj Tondaiman, and Ganemat Sekhon will be competing in the World Cup Finals being staged in Doha, Qatar, from Tuesday.

The year-end competition, being revived after four years, has the top-12 ranked shooters based on the season’s performance in World Cups, apart from the three medalists of the World Championship held last year in Baku, Azerbaijan.

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Mehuli Ghosh has qualified after her bronze medal in the World Championship. That assured three entries in the event for India. Ramita Jindal and Elavenil Valarivan make the cut based on their rank from World Cup points.

In fact, Tilottama Sen has a current world rank of No.5 in women’s air rifle, but that rank is all-inclusive of the other ISSF championships. Equally, Sift Kaur Samra has a high rank in women’s rifle 3-position event, but does make the cut for the World Cup Finals.

World Champion Rudrankksh Patil and Hriday Hazarika figure in men’s air rifle. Women’s air pistol will feature Esha Singh and TS Divya, and men’s air pistol will have Sarabjot Singh. Anish Bhanwala will feature in rapid-fire pistol.

In fact, a few other shooters also made the cut, but opted to skip the World Cup Finals and focus on training at home, or compete in the ongoing national championships, the way Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar has done.

Akhil Sheoran will be competing in men’s rifle 3-position event. He, in fact, shot the national championship qualification stage before flying out to Doha.

The World Cup Finals will offer €5,000 for the champion in each of the 12 Olympic events. The silver and bronze medalists will be presented €4,000 and €2,000 respectively.

The opening day’s competition on Tuesday will feature air pistol events for men and women. The overall competition will be spread over five days.