Lone spot up for grab in trap team

Published>Tue, Aug 24 10 06:23 AM

World No.4 Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Mansher Singh have taken the liberty of missing the trap trials for the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games that gets underway on Tuesday at the Karni Singh Shooting Range in the capital.

Their cumulative average ? Manavjit's 116.31 and Mansher's 116.93 - means they have all but assured themselves a spot in the CWG team. Also, Manavjit is scheduled to compete at the World Cup finals at Izmir, Turkey from September 16, where only world's top eight shooters get to compete, and is taking time off to prepare for these two important tournaments.

"These players can afford to miss the trials because nobody can match their averages. It would be a complete waste of time and energy for them, when they should be saving their energies for the Commonwealth Games," National Rifle Association of India secretary Rajiv Bhatia told Sportline on Monday.

Third place shoot-off

Those fighting for the third spot for the trap event will essentially earn the right to represent India at the 2010 Asian Games to be held at Guangzhou, China. Among those in contention are Anwar Sultan and Zoravar Singh Sandhu. Kynan Chenai, Birendeep Sodhi, Nayab Khan, Rayyan Rizvi, Prithviraj and Anirudh Singh are also in the fray.

Also missing out on trials is trap shooter Seema Tomar, who pulled out due to a shoulder problem. Tomar was also forced to pull out of the World Championships that was held in Munich due to the same injury. In women's, Shreyasi Singh, Varsha Tomar, Shagun Chowdhary and Zoya Mehta, will be competing for a final spot in the Indian team.

All trap shooters ? eight men and four women ? have been divided into two groups of six for the competition. While results for the women's team will be decided on Tuesday itself ? they only shoot three rounds of 25 clay targets ? men's final result will only be finalised on Wednesday, when they finish off their rounds.

Source: Web Search