Indian shooters brace up for year's fourth World Cup

Munich, May 17: A 25-member Indian contingent, including Jitu Rai and Heena Sidhu, is bracing up to compete in the year's fourth ISSF World Cup for rifle and pistol disciplines at the Olympic Shooting Range here.

The first two of the 10-finals is scheduled for Friday when the men's and women's air rifle winners will be decided.

Deepak Kumar, Ravi Kumar and Satyendra Singh will represent India in the men's 10m air rifle while Apurvi Chandela, Pooja Ghatkar and Meghana Sajjanar will carry Indian hopes in the women's event.

The Munich World Cup will be the first for international shooters in the rifle and pistol disciplines after the year's first combined World Cup stage in New Delhi concluded in March this year.

In between, there have been two more World Cup stages in Acapulco, Mexico and Larnaka, Cyprus for shotgun shooters.

Among the more established names participating for India at Munich will be Olympians Rai, Gurpreet Singh, Sanjeev Rajput, Prakash Nanjappa, Chain Singh, Heena Sidhu and Tejaswini Sawant.

In all World Cups, India have won a total of two gold, two silver and two bronze medals and will look to add to that tally in Munich, especially considering that the year-ending World Cup Finals will be hosted again by New Delhi in October.

More than 750 athletes from 80 countries will vie for the 10 gold medals up for grabs in five competition days beginning Friday (May 19).

PTI