Published>Thu, Sep 02 10 05:27 AM
Mairaj Ahmad Khan had the option of pulling out of the shot gun trials as he had the highest cumulative average among country's skeet shooters. He was assured of a spot in India's squad for both the Commonwealth Games and as well as the Asian Games team. But a slip up at the Munich World Championships, where he finished a disappointing 75 th forced the shooter to rethink.
"As planned I didn't shoot for over a week after the Munich championships. Few days before the trails, I shot a score of 74 for two consecutive days during practice. Then I decided to take part," the 33-year-old said.
It was a huge risk as a bad score, like the one in Munich could have easily scuppered his chances of making the team. "I needed a score of 117 to make the team because others needed a score of 121 to surpass my average," he added.
Instead, he surprised many, including himself, as he missed the world mark by a whisker by shooting 124 targets. "There is only one score better than this one and that is the world record."
All this despite the fact that the team has no coach after Chinese Shan Zhang's contract expired in April this year. "This score gives me a lot of confidence leading to the Commonwealth Games. I did all this without a coach," he added.
Buoyed by his recent score, Khan added that he was ready to change the perception of skeet shooters, who are ridiculed for lack of results in international events. "I am sick of people telling me how bad skeet shooters do when shooting in major competitions abroad. All of that is justified, but I am ready to change all of this at this year's Commonwealth Games."
Noria in double trap team
The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) announced the list of players for the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games. As expected Rajyavardhan Rathore is not there. His place on the double trap team went to young Asher Noria. Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Mansher Singh will take their place in the trap team. In the rifle and pistol, Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra and Gagan Narang are the top picks, while Tejaswani Sawant and Suma Shirur have also made the cut. But Samresh Jung could only qualify for the standard fire pistol category .
COMMONWEALTH GAMES squad:
MEN RIFLE: Abhinav Bindra, Hariom Singh, Gagan Narang, Imran Hassan Khan; MEN PISTOL: Deepak Sharma, Omkar Singh, Vijay Kumar, Gurpreet Singh, Samaresh Jung, C K Chaudhary, Harpreet Singh; MEN SHOTGUN: Manavjit Singh Sandhu, Mansher Singh, Mairaj Ahmad Khan, A D Peoples, Ronjon Sodhi, Asher Noria; WOMEN RIFLE: Suma Shirur, Kavitha Yadav, Meena Kumari, Tejaswini Sawant, Lajja Gauswami; WOMEN PISTOL: Anisa Sayyed, Rahi Sarnobat, Heena Sidhu, Annuraj Singh; WOMEN SHOTGUN: Seema Tomar, Shreyasi Singh
ASIAN GAMES squad: MEN RIFLE: Hariom Singh, Gagan Narang, Surendra Singh Rathod, Imran Hasan Khan, Sanjeev Rajput, Abhinav Bidnra; MEN PISTOL: Deepak Sharma, Omkar Singh, Amanpreet Singh, Vijay Kumar, Rahul Panwar, Gurpreet Singh, Samaresh Jung, C K Chaudhary, Pemba Tamang, Harpreet Singh; MEN SHOTGUN: Manavjit Singh Sandhu, Mansher Singh, Zorawar Singh Sandhu, Mairaj Ahmad Khan, A D Peoples, Smit Singh, Ronjon Sodhi, Asher Noria, Vikram Bhatnagar; WOMEN RIFLE: Suma Shirur, Kavitha Yadav, Tejaswini Sawant, Meena Kumari, Lajja Gauswami, Chetanpreet Kaur Nilon; WOMEN PISTOL: Anisa SAyyed, Rahi Sarnobat, Annuraj Singh, Heena Sidhu, Shweta Chaudhary/Sonia Rai; WOMEN SHOTGUN: Seema Tomar, Shreyasi Singh, Shagun Chowdhary, Aarti Singh Rao
Source: Web Search
0 comments:
Post a Comment