KARACHI: As many as 16 top shooters of the country are set to participate in the 14th Asian Championship scheduled in Doha from November 3-13.
National Rifle Association of Pakistan (NRAP) has sent the final entry list to the organisers. According to the list, Hassan Abbas, Ghufran Adil, Zeeshan-ul-Fareed will compete in 10-metre Air Rifle (AR-60) category. Ghufran and Zeeshan will also compete in 50 metre 3-position Rifle (FR3-X40) category.
Joseph Gulfam and Rashid Idrees will play 10-metre Air Pistol (AP-60) event. Rashid will also take part in 50-metre Pistol (FP) event. Khalil Akhtar, G M Bashir, and Hamza Khan will participate in 25-metre Rapid Fire Pistol (RFP) event.
Farrukh Nadeem, Fakhar Qureshi, Usman Sadiq and Zafar-ul-Haq will feature in Trap (TR125) event. Usman Chand, Khurrum Inam, Abubakar Siddique, and Ahmad Usman will play skeet (SK125) event.
Abubakar Siddique and Fakhar Qureshi will also vie for Minimum Qualification Score (MQS) — a minimum score that an athlete must have recorded at least once in the set timeframe in order to become eligible for the Olympic Games.
It is worth adding here that this is the last event for Pakistani shooters to win quota places for Olympics 2020. “We are hopeful that some of them will be able to win Olympic quota places in this championship,” said Executive Vice President NRAP Javaid Lodhi while talking to ‘The News’. “The most likely to do that are Bashir, Hamza, Chand, Furrukh, and Joseph,” he added.
“Also, we will arrange for our shooters training with the world’s best coaches before Olympics,” said Javaid. It is pertinent to mention that shooting is the third most important Olympic sport with 15 gold medals at stake.
“Despite our very limited resources, Pakistani shooters have been qualifying for and participating in the last five Olympics. “In 2016, two Pakistani shooters got Olympic quotas,” said Javaid.
