Hindustan Times (Delhi)

National shooting body set to abolish ‘wild card’ system from next season

- Agencies sportsdesk@hindustant­imes.com

NEW DELHI: The National Rifle Associatio­n of India (NRAI) plans to abolish the system of ‘wild card’ from next edition of the national shooting championsh­ip. Rajiv Bhatia, NRAI secretary, says, “This is being done to maintain a good standard at the national level.”

This year over 800 applicants applied for wild card to compete in the 61st national shooting championsh­ip in rifle and pistol that gets underway from Tuesday at Thiruvanan­thapuram in Kerala. But less than 200 were approved by the federation. Last year, 600 shooters were given wild card, the move proving chaotic. Therefore, there has been some restrictio­n from this year and the system will be out of practice from 2018 edition.

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NEWDELHI: India’s Saurav Ghosal advanced to the second round of the World Squash Championsh­ip at Manchester, England, while two of his compatriot­s bowed out in the men’s section. Ghosal, the national champion, was the lone survivor while Mahesh Mangaonkar and Harinder Pal Sandhu suffered first-round defeats.

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INDIA GRAB 21 MEDALS AT ASIAN SHOOTING

NEW DELHI: Saurabh Chaudhary and Manu Bhaker booked quota places for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games (YOG) by winning a gold and a silver each at the 10th Asian Championsh­ip 10m rifle/pistol at Wako City, Japan. India added four medals to their kitty on the final day of the competitio­n to finish with 21 medals, including six gold, eight silver & seven bronze.

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