Air Rifle women, Air Pistol men will kick off India's shooting challenge at Tokyo 2020

Apurvi Chandela and Elavenil Valarivan go first in women’s 10M Air Rifle, while Saurabh Chaudhary and Abhishek Verma will follow in men’s 10M Air Pistol.

Abhishek Verma practising alongside other shooters; Credit: NRAI
By Karthik Raman | Jul 23, 2021 | 3 Min Read follow icon Follow Us

The 15-member Indian shooting contingent is “raring to go” as the stage is set for the Tokyo Olympics. On Saturday, the shooting competitions of the Tokyo Games get underway with two of the 15 finals lined up and four Indian shooters on show. It begins early in the morning (5.00 AM IST) with the 10M Air Rifle women’s qualification round, where India’s Apurvi Chandela and world number one Elavenil Valarivan are in contention. They will be looking to make it to the top eight finals field from among 49-shooters in the qualification fray. The finals are scheduled for 7.15 am IST. On the other hand, Saurabh Chaudhary and Abhishek Verma take the field with the same intention in the men’s 10M Air Pistol with qualifications beginning at 9.30 am IST for the 36-man field. The finals then follow from 12 noon.

Coaches of both the Rifle and Pistol camps remained upbeat after completion of pre-event training at the Asaka Shooting Range on Friday. National Rifle coach Deepali Deshpande said, “The girls are all raring to go and training today has been as planned. We are confident of a good showing tomorrow.” Meanwhile, Pistol coach Ronak Pandit spoke about the men’s training on Friday. Ronak added, “Yes the boys trained for an hour today as did other members of the squad and they are all shaping up well. We are all looking forward to the start of competitions and are focused on the job ahead.”

Women’s 10M Air Rifle

A total of 60-shots are fired in the qualification round in an allotted time of 75 minutes from a 0.177 inches caliber Air Rifle. Scoring is in decimals of 10 with a 10.9 being the perfect shot. ROC athlete Yulia Karimova, the reigning world champion in the 50M Rifle 3 Positions Olympic event, and Chinese Taipei’s world number four Lin Ying-Shin will pose the mightiest threats in the field.

In-form shooters like Carolyne Mary Tucker of the US, Ziva Dvorsak of Slovenia, Sofia Ceccarilo of Italy, and Eszter Mezaros of Hungary will also pose a strong challenge. The Chinese duo of Wang Luyao and Yang Qian, and Korean shooter Eunji Kwon are also ones to keep an eye on. Normally, a score of 630 out of a maximum possible 654 ensures qualification into the finals at this level. The Indian duo has recorded world competition bests of 633 (Apurvi) and 632.7 (Elavenil) respectively.

Apurvi also holds the finals world record in the event with a score of 252.9 to her name. The finals are a 24-shot affair with the eighth-place being decided after 12-shots and one shooter being eliminated after every two shots thereafter, till the winner is decided after the 23rd and 24th single shots. Since the field is without the Rio Games medallists, there will be a new Olympic Champion.

Men’s 10M Air Pistol

Over the last three years, Saurabh and Abhishek have been among the best Air Pistol shooters in the world. The 36-man field, however, could be difficult due to the presence of some of the best in Pistol shooting, led by the biggest of them all – Korean Jongoh Jin. The four-time Olympic Champion (including once in this event), is also the reigning world champion. Along with him, there will also be Beijing Olympic Champion Pang Wei of China, the Rio Rapid Fire Pistol Champion Christian Reitz of Germany, and the Rio defending champion Hoang Xuan Vinh of Vietnam.

The qualification round is scored in full rings as opposed to decimals in the Air Rifle competition. A score of 580 is considered the bare minimum to reach the finals of world class competitions. The finals, however, revert to decimal scoring and follow the exact same format as the Air Rifle competition.