Ahead of the Olympics, the consequences of the deadly coronavirus has already started to affect sports competitions as many countries have pulled out of the first shooting world cup of the year which is scheduled to be held at the Karni Singh Shooting Range in Delhi. Pakistan, as reported earlier had pulled out saying that they needed to focus on training for the Olympics and China, the epic center of COVID-19 outbreak, along with Taiwan, Hong Kong have decided to give the competition a miss.
According to NRAI President Raninder Singh, 68 countries have sent entries in the Shooting World Cup but China, North Korea, Vietnam, Bahrain, Turkmenistan, Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei decided not to play due to coronavirus outbreak. On the other hand, Pakistan decided not to play due to the Olympic preparations of its shooters, while the Maldives withdrew due to the economic crisis.
Raninder said that China made a wise decision by pulling out as they did not want to spread the disease. Further, he said that Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, North Korea, and Turkmenistan backed out because of travel restrictions imposed by the governments of these countries.
Indian shooters have booked a record of 15 quotas for the Tokyo Olympics. These include Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar (50m 3 position) and Chinki Yadav (25m pistol), but both the shooters failed to make it to the main team for the Olympics as they could not make into the top three in the rankings.
Both these shooters will now play as MQS shooter, which will give them a chance to make it to the Olympic team. The remaining quota shooters were Apoorvi Chandela, Anjum Moudgil, Deepak Kumar, Divyansh Singh Panwar (10m air rifle) Saurabh Chaudhary, Abhishek Verma, Manu Bhakar, Yashaswani Singh Deswal, Rahi Sarnobat (10, 25m air pistol) Sanjeev Rajput, Tejaswani Sawant (50m Three Positions), Meraj Ahmed Khan, Angadvir Singh Bajwa (Skeet).
