Olympics: Indian shooters to start training from Monday in Zagreb

India's Olympic Games bound shooters will start training here from Monday after completing seven days in quarantine. They will also compete in this month's World Cup, to be staged here.

Ronak Pandit, India's high-performance manager for pistol shooting, and foreign pistol expert Pavel Smirnov will monitor the training of the shooters.

"Both Pandit and Smirnov reached Zagreb this week and it's mandatory to undergo seven days quarantine before joining the camp," an official told IANS.

Earlier, 13-member Indian shooting team reached Croatia for a training-cum-competition stint and will directly reach Japan from Croatia. Only pistol coach Ved Prakash had accompanied the squad while Pandit and Smirnov couldn't join due to different reasons.

India has got five Olympic quota places in pistol events and eight in rifle. Two skeet shooters have also qualified for the July-August Olympics.

The Indian shooters had recently competed in the minimum qualification score category at the European Shooting Championships held in Osijek, a two-hour drive from Zagreb.

High performance rifle coach Deepali Deshpande had expressed her satisfaction over the team's performance in Osijek. "It was overall a good performance considering the shooters had a break after the New Delhi World Cup in March," she had said.

The national team will next compete in the World Cup in Zagreb, starting June 21.

"There will not be any major changes in the training programme of the shooters, but we will try our best to erase minor flaws that inadvertently creep in during training," said the coach.

--IANS

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