Indian shooters look to continue good show in ISSF Junior World Cup

New Delhi, Sep 24 (PTI) Olympian shotgun shooter Raiza Dhillon and Asian junior trap champion Sabeera Haris will lead a 69-member strong Indian contingent in the ISSF Junior World Cup, beginning here Thursday, with the aim of topping the charts on home soil.

The second and final Junior World Cup of the year, being held at the scenic Karni Singh Ranges in Tughlakabad, will see shooters in the U-21 age category across rifle, pistol and shotgun match their skills against more than 200 shooters from 18 countries, vying for 51 medals across 15 Olympic and two non-Olympic disciplines.

Raiza, the youngest Indian shooter at the 2024 Paris Olympics in 2024, has emerged as one of the top skeet exponents and she would be looking to clinch the top individual position after striking the team gold in the 2021 Junior World Championships in Lima.

The event will kick off on Thursday with men's and women's 50m rifle prone -- both non-Olympic disciplines -- with India fielding five shooters each in both the sections.

In men's 50m rifle prone section, Rohit Kanyan, Kushagra Singh Rajawat, Nitin Waghmare and Deependra Shekhawat, who recently returned from the Asian Championships in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, will test their skills against some upcoming shooters from Europe and Individual Neutral Athletes (AIN) from Russia and Belarus.

In the women's 50m prone too, the likes of Aadhya Agarwal, Anshika, Nimrat Brar, Anushka Thokur and Saniya Sudesh will face challenge from some shooters from Europe and AIN athletes.

Incidentally, the response in the two non-Olympic events has been quite lukewarm, which can be gauged from the starting lineups in the two 50m rifle prone events. A total of 11 entries are there in the men's event, of which five are Indians, while in the women's event too there are just 11 competitors, of which five are Indians, as per the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) list.

Given that the participating countries have sent very limited number of shooters in the two events, India is likely to dominate the proceeding on Thursday.

However, a sizeable number of shooters will compete in the Olympic disciplines giving Indian juniors valuable experience and exposure as they take the next step towards making it to the senior squad.

India is likely to improve upon its medals tally compared to the Junior World Cup earlier this year in Suhl, Germany where they topped the table with 11 medals -- 3 gold, 4 silver, 4 bronze. PTI AM AM ATK ATK