Pistol shooters take aim as India hope for strong start in Asian Championship

New Delhi, Feb 3 (PTI) Double Olympic bronze medallist Manu Bhaker and world champion Samrat Rana will be among a host of shooting stars aiming to give India a strong start at the Asian Championship for Rifle/Pistol here on Wednesday.

World Cup Final champion Suruchi Singh and Esha Singh will also be in the fray on the opening day at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Ranges here.

Four finals will be held on Wednesday -- the senior men’s and women’s 10m air pistol, along with the Junior and Youth men's 10m air pistol events.

Suruchi Singh and Samrat Rana will be one of the favourites to win the gold medal along with Manu Bhaker and Esha Singh in the women’s event.

World number four and world silver medallist Ho Ching Shing of Hong Kong lines up as one of the favourites for the women's 10m air pistol. She has made the continental final on four occasions, winning silver in 2019.

A dark horse for a medal could be Cheng Yen-Ching of Chinese Taipei, ranked 16th in the world. The 19-year-old had a solid performance of 25th in her debut World Championship and even finished fifth on her ISSF World Cup debut in Munich.

Thu Vinh Trinh of Vietnam, a two-time Asian bronze medallist and two-time Olympic finalist, will also feature.

Samrat will lead the Indian men’s side along with world number two and world bronze medallist Varun Tomar and Sharvan Kumar who finished 12th in the World Championship.

Valeriy Rakhimzhan of Kazakhstan, the world number eight and the ISSF World Cup silver medallist from Munich, Hsieh Hsiang-Chen of Chinese Taipei and Uzbekistan's world number 25 Mukhammad Kamalov will be the main competitors for the Indian shooters.

Jonathan Gavin Antony, Mukesh Nelavalli, Deaflympics medallist Abhinav Deshwal, Himanshu Rana and Priyanshu Yadav will take the field in Junior category, while Darren K Dawn, Girish Gupta, Abhay Dhama, Mandeep Chauhan, Dhairya Prashar and Hardik Bansal will be in action in the youth section.

India has entered the largest squad of 118 shooters with Kazakhstan fielding the second biggest contingent of 35 athletes.

Regional powerhouses Korea and Japan have also fielded strong squads and shooters from Chinese Taipei, Vietnam and Hong Kong are also expected to put up good performances. PTI PDS PDS ATK