Mid-western Region had once produced the golden generation of Nepali shooter that achieved success at South Asian level. [break]
Anita Shrestha had won gold medal in 10 m air rifle event during the Fifth South Asian Games 1991 held in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Likewise, Parvati Thapa, Anita Shrestha and Bivashwari Rai had won silver medals in the 10 m air rifle team event during the games.
Shrestha and Thapa are from Nepalgunj. Likewise, Bhumika Singh, another shooter from the region, had won a bronze during the Colombo SAG in 1991.
Nepal had won bronze medals in the 10 m air rifle and 10 m air pistol team events during the Eighth SAG held in Kathmandu in 1999. Upendra Thapa and Sameer Aryal, both from the mid-west, were part of the teams then.
After 2052 BS, Nepal Shooting Association centralized ammunitions in Kathmandu. Shooters in Mid-western Region didn’t get any chance to practise with ammunitions and their performance started faltering. Departmental teams -- Nepal Army and Nepal Police -- started dominating national shooting events and participation from different regions started to slow down.
Baduruddin Ansari won a gold medal for Mid-western Region in shooting during the Fifth National Games held in Kathmandu three years ago.
The slump in Mid-western affected Nepal’s performances in international tournaments. Nepal had to satisfy with a bronze medal in the 11th SAG held in Dhaka.
However, the National Shooting Championship that concluded on Friday gave hopes to Mid-western Region. Baduruddin Ansari won gold in men’s 10 m air pistol and Krishna Thapa claimed gold in women’s 10 m air pistol events. Baduruddin teamed up with Abdul Waheed Ansari and Ashad Khan to win gold in men’s 10 m air pistol team event. Waheed Ansari and Khan are new faces in shooting.
Mid-western also claimed silver medals in men’s 10 m air rifle and women’s 10 m air pistol team events. “Sneha Rana, Juhi Chaudhary and Kulin Thapa are also products of Mid-western Region but they played for Central Region in this competition,” informed Narendra Thapa, a member of the team that won silver for Mid-western.
“We don’t have proper equipment and shooting range. Our shooters in pistol event used to practise with a large bottle of cold drink filled with water since the weight of the bottle with water was equivalent to the weight of a pistol,” said Thapa.
Thapa also informed that Nepal Shooting Association (NSA) has assured them to send a pistol and a rifle. “After watching our performance and listening to our complaints, NSA President assured to provide us a pistol and a rifle,” said Thapa. “We are happy to get it but we have a large number of players and it would be insufficient for Mid-western Region,” he added.
NSA President Pushpa Das Shrestha is happy to see shooters from different regions doing well in the national championship. “We are happy to see growing number of shooters participating in the national championships from different regions and also doing well,” said Shrestha.
“Earlier, we had only spring-piston guns but we need CO2 guns now for participating in the international tournaments. Because of this reason, we could not provide guns to shooters at different regions,” said Shrestha. “We’ll provide a pistol and a rifle to every region as soon as possible,” he added.
Shrestha, who took the charge of NSA ad-hoc committee three years ago, claimed that his committe transformed Satdobato Shooting Range from 12-lane to 18-lane range with a good lighting system. “We have guns of latest model and sufficient ammunition for Kathmandu now,” said Shrestha. “In the next step, NSA will work for the development of shooting range in Nepalgunj,” he added.
Shrestha is planning to call electoral general assembly within a month. “If I’m elected for next term, I’ve plans to develop shooting ranges in Tikapur, Dhangadhi, also,” said Shrestha.
Meanwhile, Shrestha informed that NSA has a plan to take best shooters either to the Asian Air Gun Championship or Asian Shooting Championship scheduled to be held in Kuwait and Doha in October and January respectively.
“Shooters need to have minimum qualifying score to participate in Olympics and Asian Games and the participation in the championship is must to secure that point,” said Shrestha.
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