NRAI rings changes in selection policy

Vinayak Padmadeo

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Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 16

The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) has drastically changed its selection policy after the Tokyo Olympics debacle, where the Indian shooters failed to win a medal.

In the new policy, which is set to be ratified by NRAI’s governing body on November 20, no Indian shooter will be allowed to participate in more than two World Cups in a year. This decision was taken by the technical committee, which included Ashok Pandit, Sheila Kanungo, Morad Ali Khan and Anusha Jung, on Tuesday.

However, if the chief coach in any of the disciplines — pistol, rifle and shotgun — successfully spells out the need to pick a shooter for the third World Cup to the secretary general and the president of NRAI, the shooter could be selected again.

Importantly, all scores will be accounted for in the new policy. It is a big change from the previous policy, where the shooters were allowed to drop two low scores before computing the final average score.

No bonus points

Also, the shooters who win the quota for the country will not get the bonus points. Those winning the World Championships gold will get two additional points that will be added to the qualification scores only.

The change in policy has been initiated because the NRAI top brass has concluded that the Indian shooters had been shooting far too many competitions, including the selection trials. The shift would give them a chance to throw the next rung into major competitions as opposed to a scenario where the top-three ranked shooters would almost always feature in the main team.

Further, as per the new policy that will come into effect from the 64th National Shooting Championships, starting from November 18, no shooter will be allowed to participate in international competitions at “own cost.”

NRAI has also decided to include domestic competitions, including the Kumar Surendra Singh competition, as selection trials. NRAI has also done away with the system of categorising shooters into senior, junior and youth. Now all shooters will shoot in the open category, provided they have achieved the minimum qualifying scores to appear in the trials.