After the fine performance of the men and women in trap and mixed trap, the onus will be on the Indian skeet shooters to step it up in pursuit of Olympic quota places in the shotgun World Cup in Acapulco, Mexico.
The Indian women shooters — Rashmi Rathore, Maheshwari Chauhan and Simranpreet Kaur Johal — will be the first in action in the skeet event spread over three days.
They will be followed by the men — Angad Vir Singh Bajwa, Olympian Mairaj Ahmad Khan and Sheeraz Sheikh. The trap shooters competed hard in a high-scoring competition. Olympian Kynan Chenai shot 123 out of 125 but missed the final in a shoot-off. Prithviraj Tondaiman shot 121.
Strong finish
In the women’s event, Shagun Chowdhary had a strong finish, shooting 49 out of 50 on the second day, and missed the final by three points after ending with 116 out of 125. In mixed trap, Rajeshwari Kumari (74) and Kynan Chenai (72) shot 146 out of 150 and missed the final by one point.
The Indian shooters have won three Olympic quota places for the Tokyo 2020 Games through rifle shooters Anjum Moudgil and Apurvi Chandela from the World Championship held in Korea last year, apart from pistol shooter Saurabh Chaudhary in the World Cup staged at home recently.