Adams calls for shooting event to pacify India
Britain’s sports minister is proposing a new shooting competition to avoid a threatened boycott by India of the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
Nigel Adams suggested a compromise event after the Indian Olympic Association expressed fury when the sport was dropped from the medals programme for the first time in more than 50 years.
Under Adams’s plan, a new Commonwealth shooting competition would be held near by as the Games take place. “I have already written to the Commonwealth Federation to see if we can accommodate shooting in some form, maybe a Commonwealth shooting championships,” said Adams. “It’s important that we do get a competition in 2022.”
Pistol and clay pigeon shooting could be staged in Birmingham but rifle events would take place at Bisley in Surrey. Adams said: “I totally understand how passionate people are about shooting across the Commonwealth. We want India to be here, no question.”
Adams was speaking at an announcement at Edgbaston cricket ground that Birmingham 2022 will be the first major multi-sport event to feature more women’s medal events than men’s. As disclosed yesterday by The Daily Telegraph, Birmingham 2022’s recommendation for women’s T20 cricket, beach volleyball and para table tennis as new events has been formally accepted by the 71 Commonwealth Games associations.
The addition of women’s T20 cricket will mean eight teams competing at Birmingham’s Edgbaston ground and that there are 135 women’s medal events, two more than for men.
It will be the first time that cricket, a sport associated with many Commonwealth countries, has been included at the Commonwealth Games since South Africa won a men’s 50-over tournament in Kuala Lumpur in 1998.