Pistol shooters face race against time

India's top shooters Abhishek Verma and Saurabh Chaudhary are struggling to make it to the team 

- Avishek Roy

A mind-boggling 1200 shooters participated in men's air pistol event at the Senior National Championships in Bhopal culminating in the final on Thursday after 11 days of competition in just one event. The scores in the qualification round and final were world class - as high as the World Championships in Baku this year. Encouraging it might seem just seven months before the Paris Olympics, but the reality is different. There is still an Olympic quota to be won from the event and there is no guarantee that such high scores will be replicated in the next international competition, which will be a Paris Olympic qualifier in Jakarta in January.

Out of eight quotas for pistol events at the Paris Olympics, the Indian shooters have managed to grab just three so far. The big struggle has been in air pistol events where of the four Paris quotas on offer, only one (Sarabjot Singh) has come India's way. The remaining three have to be sealed over the next two qualifiers and it will be a big ask to grab all of them.