The Hindu : Sport : Will Jaspal Rana get selected without trials?

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Friday, Sep 21, 2007
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Sport

Will Jaspal Rana get selected without trials?

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The trials for the Indian shooting team for the Asian championship may have reached fever pitch at the Dr. Karni Singh Range at Tughlakabad, but the best shooter in the country has kept out of the fray.

Jaspal Rana, who won three golds in the centrefire pistol and standard pistol events in the Doha Asian Games last December, has not reported for the trials that are scheduled to end on September 23.

National coach Prof. Sunny Thomas said Jaspal was expected to shoot in the trials but had failed to report till Thursday.

To be considered

However, the National coach made it clear that Jaspal would be considered for selection when the committee meets on September 24, if the pistol genius agrees to train and compete in the Asian championship scheduled to be held in Kuwait in December.

“We don’t want a situation by which we select a squad and are forced to replace one of the shooters at a later stage to accommodate Jaspal. That would be unfair,” said Prof. Thomas.

With both his events, centrefire pistol and standard pistol, not being part of the Olympics, there is no question of Jaspal vying for an Olympic berth, which would be the main focus for the Indian shooters in Kuwait, as it would be the last chance for the shooters in the region to win qualification berths for the Beijing Olympics. Incidentally, Jaspal was toying with the idea of participating in the rapidfire pistol event, in which he was good enough to hold the National record, but eventually opted to skip the trials completely.

Olympic quota place holders, trap shooters Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Mansher Singh were given exemption by the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) to continue with their training programme, rather than take part in the trials. Even the quota aspirant, Ronjan Sodhi shot only one of the two trials in doubletrap, while Abhinav Bindra appeared only for two of the four trials.

Eventually, some of the prominent shooters who do the full course in the trials and make all the finals as well, like Anjali Bhagwat has done in women’s air rifle, may end up paying dearly as the overall average, especially in the finals, may pull them out of their pet events.

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