ISSF World Cup: Six Indians in fray on competition day one

Two finals are lined up on competition day one, as the year's first International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cup Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun stage gets underway on Saturday, in Mexico's Guadalajara, heralding the beginning of the 2018 international Shooting sport season.

The Men's 10M Air Pistol will see Jitu Rai, Om Prakash Mitherwal and Shazar Rizvi carry Indian medal hopes in the qualification stages while Apurvi Chandela, Mehuli Ghosh and Anjum Moudgil will fight it out in the Women's 10M Air Rifle, in the second medal event of the day.

A total of 404 athletes from 50 National Olympic Committees will pile up 594 starts in the 12-day competition, which will have 15 medal events including three mixed team events. India has fielded a 33-member squad including three shooters in the MQS (minimum qualification score) section.

2018 has a packed shooting sport calendar with four ISSF World Cup stages in each of the three disciplines apart from the World Championships, the Commonwealth Games, the Asian Games and the Youth Olympics.

The World Championships, scheduled to be held in Changwon, Korea in August-September will also be the first quota competition for the Tokyo 2020 summer Olympics.