NEW DELHI: It is the biggest event in the world of shooting, and it has been the best fare ever by an Indian team. However, national coach Prof. Sunny Thomas, who returned from the 49th World champion in Zagreb, Croatia, on Saturday, delved into the missed medals and the Olympic quota places rather than gloat on the achievements of three Indians, including a junior, becoming World champions.

"It shows that the team is coming up. I am happy about winning six medals and having World champions. It has been a long time since Jaspal Rana became the World junior champion in 1994. Already, the sponsors seem to be interested in shooting and soon we may be able to get the best ammunition and in sufficient quantity. In a few events, we missed the bronze by one point. I am really happy about the juniors coming up so well. Some had shot fantastic scores in training in Bangalore, but they couldn't do that in competition. Anyway, we do know that everyone cannot perform the best at the same time,'' Thomas said in a chat with The Hindu.

Elaborating further, Thomas said that Tejaswini Sawant could have got an Olympic quota in air rifle and Samaresh Jung could have performed much better in both air pistol and free pistol, even as he quickly pointed out that Mansher Singh with a 120 out of 125, missed the Olympic quota on the count back in trap.

Strong plea

He had made a strong plea for the rapid fire pistol team when only two were being selected originally. He had promised that the team would finish in the top six, and the team did that despite two of the shooters not being at their best.

"At the World Cup in Brazil, I had noticed that the Indian trio's total was the second best among all. I had faith in the team. They missed the bronze by six points at Zagreb, and Pemba Tamang missed the final by two points and he could have got the Olympic quota too. In fact, he was just four points short of the best score of 583. The Athens Olympics gold medallist, Ralf Schumann of Germany, who has won three World Cups this year, also shot 579 like Pemba,'' said Thomas.

In the same breath, he pointed out that rapid fire was being shot with new pistols and new ammunition by the rest of the world.

"About 90 per cent of the shooters at Zagreb were using new weapon and ammunition. Vijay Kumar has got the new pistol through the army recently and we didn't want to change to it at a short notice before such a big competition. The change will make a lot of difference to our scores and we will definitely improve by three or four points,'' Thomas said.

The Indian team also missed at least a medal in women's air rifle as the former Champion of Champions Anjali Bhagwat could not be fielded owing to ill health. "We had to put Deepali Deshpande at the last minute to make the team and she had a 390 out of 400,'' said Thomas. Of course, Avneet Kaur got the Olympic quota in women's air rifle by making the final.

"I expected at least three quota places and we got two. We have to remember that we had not got a single quota place in the last World championship at Lahti. Moreover, we had got five of the eight quota places for Athens from the Asian championship. We already have six quotas and are left with the World Cups and the Asian championship next year. I expect at least another half-a-dozen Indian shooters to qualify for the Beijing Olympics,'' emphasised Thomas.

Talking about the plan ahead, the national coach said that all the shooters would have to go through three trials to get selected for the Asian Games at Doha in December.

"The trials are scheduled to be held after a camp in Bangalore in September. We will take two best qualifying scores and one final score. I am trying to convince the authorities that we should allow automatic qualification at least for the quota place-holders for the event in which they have qualified,'' concluded Thomas.

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