Gagan Narang’s Foundation to shortlist 30 shooters for Project Leap

Pune, May 15: Gagan Narang Sports Promotion Foundation (GNSPF) backed Project Leap trained shooters are already making a strong impression at the international arena.

The Project which is part of GNSPF's Vision 2024; 10 Medal Shooting India, in its third year has initiated its annual selections for all talented young shooters from across the country. An unprecedented 304 shooters have applied for the trial which will continue from 16 th May to 22 nd May at the state-of-the-art Gun for Glory Shooting Academy in Pune.

As last year, the highly cognitive trial has been made open for all shooters of India falling under the age group of under-21 and the final selected best shooters will be trained by highly qualified and experienced International Rifle & Pistol coaches and mentored by the ace Olympic medallist shooter, Gagan Narang himself.

"We initiated Project Leap with an ambitious goal of finding India its 10 best shooters as part of Vision 2024. We knew the potential of the Project Leap but had to start modest; the results have been phenomenal. Backed with the success of last two years we have rolled out the project for all youth and junior shooters with the hope of unearthing more talent who have been untapped so far," said Mentor and co-founder of GNSPF, Gagan Narang.

Project Leap, which is GNSPF's most ambitious project yet, was initiated in 2017 and has already seen some exceptional rise of shooters like Elavenil Valarivan (Indian Sr. Team & ISSF World Championship Gold medallist, World Record holder, TOPS athlete), Shreya Aggarwal (Indian rank no.1 Air Riflr Jr.), Esha Singh (Air Pistol National Champion 2018, Youngest National Champion), Dhanush Srikanth (Gold medallist Khelo India 2019). The shooters who were part of this elite mentoring have also helped the Indian junior team clinch 49 international medals and 42 national medals.

A total of eight shooters have also represented the country at various international tournaments in the last two year and have shown consistent performance.

"Selections for Project LEAP are conducted with utmost precision. The process followed is in line with the international standards based not just on shooting scores but on meta & neuro cognitive results alongside physical tests which help us identify the shooters with most potential," Co-Founder of GNSPF & appointed as Jury for Tokyo Olympic 2020, first and Only Indian Jury Member appointed for Olympics, Pawan Singh said.

Project Leap is a yearlong initiative in partnership with Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ) and the shortlisted shooters undergo extensive training with the foreign coaches, physios, sports psychologist, biokinetics and nutritionists who work closely with each of the shooters alongside state of the art facilities at Pune & CSS Chennai combined with top notch equipment that the talents will be provided with.

The project has also been supported by corporate community with Dr. Lal Path Labs, FitBit India & Alcis Sports supporting under CSR mandate.

The registration process saw an overwhelming response with bulk of the shooters coming from states like Maharashtra, Gujrat, UP & Punjab among others. The project has also been able to attract talented shooters from eastern & northern part of the country.

Source: Media Release