NRAI hopeful of shooting getting included in 2022 Commonwealth Games

Raninder Singh, president of National Rifle Association of India, on Tuesday said that India is still hopeful of shooting being included in the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games (CWG).

It can be recalled that earlier in January this year, the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) had backed the local organizing committee's choice to not include Shooting at the Birmingham 2022 CWG.

At an event to celebrate the success of India's shooting contingent at the recently-concluded Gold Coast 2018 CWG, Singh also urged the Government to withdraw from the said Games, if all efforts failed.

Singh also said that the NRAI was in constant touch with the sport's world body the ISSF, the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) as well as with the Birmingham Games organizing committee to work out ways in which the sport can still be included.

Shooting, though an optional sport at the CWG, has been played in every edition since Kingston 1966, except once in Edinburgh in 1970.

Singh also declared that in order to ensure focus on the ISSF World Championships, scheduled for Changwon, Korea on the last day of August and which would also be the first quota competition for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, India would not participate in the two ISSF World Cup stages to be held in the USA this year.

The ISSF World Cup Rifle/Pistol is slated for June at Fort Benning and the ISSF World Cup Shotgun is scheduled for July in Tucson.

He added that this would also provide enough recuperation time for the shooters before the all-important World Championships and that the NRAI would conduct technical camps during that period instead.