Overhaul needed: NRAI

Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary during the 10m air pistol mixed team event yesterday. Pic/PTI

The Indian shooting federation on Tuesday promised an "overhaul" of the coaching staff after the 15-strong contingent's Olympic campaign moved from one disaster to another here, the sport trending for all the wrong reasons, including intra-squad factionalism.

As the country's shooters continued to belie expectations with their horror show here, reliving the Rio 2016 debacle, the head of the sport's national governing body promised a major revamp in coaching and support staff.

Raninder Singh

Unexpected failure

"Definitely the performances have not been on expected lines and I have spoken of an overhaul of coaching and support staff," National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) chief Raninder Singh said.

He was speaking after the rifle and pistol shooters failed to clear the qualification stages of the mixed team events, leaving the followers of the sport dejected.
The Indians found it hard to believe that their shooters failed to finish on the podium in the mixed team events, considered the country's best bet prior to the Games.

Seventh-place finish

The pair of Saurabh Chaudhary and Bhaker caved in under pressure and failed to qualify for the final of the 10m air pistol mixed team events, finishing seventh in Qualification 2 after topping the first phase with 582 at the Asaka Range. They lost the plot completely when the top eight teams battled it out in the second phase. The other Indian team in the event, Abhishek Verma and Yashaswini Singh Deswal, failed to clear Qualification 1 and finished in 17th place.

Later in the day, the two Indian pairs participating in the 10m air rifle mixed team event too crashed out in the first qualifications stage. The duo of Elavenil Valarivan and Divyansh Singh Panwar finished 12th with a total of 626.5 across three series each, while Anjum Moudgil and Deepak Kumar ended 18th out of 29 pairs with an aggregate score of 623.8.

Questions are being raised about why the shooters were not able to replicate their excellent showing at the ISSF World Cups at the Olympics.
"I feel something is lacking in getting our shooters prepared for these big occasions, because clearly the talent is there and we have seen it here as well," the NRAI boss said.

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