Indian Shooting thread

[sameerph]

Ok, olympic cycle well and truly begins for us as we get our first Paris olympics qualifier. First quota place in shooting for us came from unexpected quarters as in the world shotgun shooting championships, in mens trap Bhowneesh Mendriatta won us a quota place as he made it to the top 4 there. (finished 4th), Had never heard his name before and we did not have a quota place in trap in last olympics. Good start for us.

[srini]

Awesome. Didn't expect quota in shotgun that too from world championships and seems this tournament continues until Oct 12th.No quota obtained in Trap women which is already over. Any chances of quota in Skeet men/women?

[sameerph]

Awesome. Didn't expect quota in shotgun that too from world championships and seems this tournament continues until Oct 12th.No quota obtained in Trap women which is already over. Any chances of quota in Skeet men/women?

Mairaj Ahmad Khan won gold in world cup in Korea in July. So, he may have a chance if he shoots as well.

[srini]

Mairaj placed at 64th position with 1 round out of 5 left in qualifications and 2 other men also placed near him at bottom.
Women seem to have done better with Maheswari Chauhan and Darshana Rathore at 24 and 29 with 1 more round to go, but even there very slim chances of making to finals.

[srini]

Gold medal and a quota place by Rudrankksh Patil in Air rifle 10m in the on-going World Championship in Egypt. This can be considered a quality quota place(due to Gold medal at World Championship not any other worldcup!) and medal prospect at Paris if he can maintain this.

[sameerph]

Yes, this is world class performance as everyone was there except the Russians who may anyway not be there for Paris Olympics too. Rudraksh is only 18 and he can be a true medal hopeful at Paris Olympics. Only need to wait to see that he does not falter. So many of these shooting starts have just faded away after great starts to their career. Saurabh Chaudhari is not even in the team for this world championships.

[Atithee]

They pretty much fail when it matters. All these medals count for nothing and just result in sob stories and heartbreaks. This is the best we have, but I’ve long stopped extrapolating these into even hypothetical success.

[prasen9]

Is there more variability in the 10m air rifle than in the other longer distance ones? Or for that matter just a huge variability in all of shooting? Than say tennis. Or swimming, athletics. Etc. That is, is it more of a crapshoot because it is easier and whoever has the luck (and nerves) wins? Our medalists at the Olympics have been two in the 10m air rifle and 1 in the 25m pistol if I recall correctly.

I would say that the chances of a 10m air rifle world champion even one who wins the World Championship of winning an Olympic Medal is about 5% or less. It would be interesting to see the variability in the champions in that event across tournaments. For example, I do not really follow golf but ESPN still puts up these headlines for me to ignore. It seems that golf has lots of people who win majors. While in tennis, at least mens, very few people do. Or for that matter 100m track and field. Maybe we win medals at all because of the variability and it being a crap shoot. And, because of that, whoever among ours wins at the World Championships does not repeat that much in the Olympics.

Does anyone else feel the same? Or is this just my subjective impression based on anecdotal observations?

[sameerph]

They pretty much fail when it matters. All these medals count for nothing and just result in sob stories and heartbreaks. This is the best we have, but I’ve long stopped extrapolating these into even hypothetical success.

This is what it matters. This is world championships, not usual world cups. To put in perspective, the only gold we won in world championships was way back in 2006 when Abhinav Bindra had won the gold. We have won only 2 medals in mens Air rifle in a world championships which has been held every 4 years since 1966- Abhinav in 2006 and Gagan Narang bronze in 2010 and both have won olympic medals as well.

Is there more variability in the 10m air rifle than in the other longer distance ones? Or for that matter just a huge variability in all of shooting? Than say tennis. Or swimming, athletics. Etc. That is, is it more of a crapshoot because it is easier and whoever has the luck (and nerves) wins? Our medalists at the Olympics have been two in the 10m air rifle and 1 in the 25m pistol if I recall correctly.

I would say that the chances of a 10m air rifle world champion even one who wins the World Championship of winning an Olympic Medal is about 5% or less.

There is a lot of variability in shooting in general. It is about shooting the best on a given day. I would still not put it as low as 5%. Somewhere around 10-15% I guess. But, as you see we have only 2 medalists in 50+ years of world championships in 10M Air rifle and both have won medals at olympics too.

[rajitghosh]

A correction. Bindra is not India's only gold medallist in the World Shooting Championship. Manavjit Sandhu and Tejaswini Sawant have also won golds.

[srini]

World championships will conclude with 4 more events which have quota places from Friday to Sunday- Rifle prone , 25 m pistol in men's and women's take place...If we can grab couple from those it would be good show.

[srini]

Rhythm and Manu are well placed at 1 and 5 ranks after precision round of qualifications in 25 m pistol. Hope they can continue the form in rapid round.

[sameerph]

Yesterday, Anjum Modugil narrowly missed the quota by 1 spot as she finished 6th in 50M rifle 3 positions. Hope we get one today.

[sameerph]

Swapnil Kusale missed bronze ( or maybe even gold or silver ) with a bad last shot but more importantly he won the quote place in mens 50m rifle 3 position as quotas are available for top 4 shooters.

Our third quota place in shooting so far for Paris olympics.

[srini]

Rhytm Sangwan was leading until last 5 shots but lost her "rhytm" and shot 5 blanks and was out of contention for medals as well as a prospective quota.To be frank those 5 are not blanks literally...i think 10 and above score are treated as hits and 9s are misses in finals.