India hit by flash targets controversy

PTI

New Delhi, March 14

India faced a huge embarrassment in front of the international shooting community when the ‘flash targets’ for the finals of the prestigious Para World Cup trap events had to be discarded by the foreign jury as they were not fit for competition.

The Para Shooting World Cup is the first-ever event of its kind taking place in India and offers 20 Paris Paralympic berths. More than 250 shooters from 50 countries participated in the event, which concluded today, at the Karni Singh Ranges.

While ‘flash targets’ are not mandatory in the finals of the shotgun events, they are used in almost every international competition finals as they reduce judgement errors to a bare minimum.

The ‘flash target’ explodes on impact, spewing a thick plume of pink colour.

A range official at the Karni Singh Ranges said that the jury was furious and asked all the “target throwing machines to be emptied immediately of flash targets and replaced with ordinary target clay pigeons,” which created “a lot of commotion”.

National Rifle Association of India secretary Rajiv Bhatia said that the Paralympic Committee of India had bought 15 cartons of flash targets from the federation but said they had not provided them poor quality or expired targets. “These are delicate and breakable commodities, how they were handled during transportation I don’t know,” he said.

The two bodies have been involved in a tussle on who should govern the para shooting sport in the country for the last one year.

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