KATHMANDU, Aug 15: Nepal shooting team is hopeful that it will at least make it to the final round of shooting competition at the 2018 Asian Games, to be held from August 18 to September 2 in the Indonesian cities of Palembang and Jakarta.
Sushmita Nepal, Kalpana Pariyar, and Sushe Chaudhary are representing Nepal in 10-meter air rifle individual event and mixed events in Indonesia. The shooting events will be held on August 19 and 20.
Both players and coaches were quite hopeful to qualify to at least top eight despite practicing on paper targets, which is not applicable to electronic scoring targets used in international competitions.
“Asian Games and Olympics use electronic scoring targets in shooting. But, we have been practicing on paper targets because we lack electronic equipment,” said chief coach Pradeep Khati during a farewell to the team organized by the National Sports Council on Tuesday.
The six-member shooting team, consisting of three players, coach Sakuntala Shrestha and team manager Dhruba Bahadur Rayamajhi will leave for Indonesia on Wednesday. Chief coach Khati, who is also a part of jury, left on Tuesday.
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“Due to lack of electronic equipment, Nepal has not been able to perform its best and win medals in international shooting competitions. Other countries have better equipment and better physical infrastructure, so competing with them and winning medals is difficult for us,” he said. “It is an expensive game, which needs heavy investments. The government has failed to pay much attention to shooting, which is why we are behind other nations in shooting.”
“But we will try to perform well and qualify for the top eight. The players start from zero at the final rounds. Luck also plays key role there. We might have a chance to elevate our position,” he added.
Nepal has been participating in shooting at the Asian Games since 1982, but has never won a medal. If Nepal could score a minimum qualification score of 570 out of 600 in Indonesia, it will get a chance of applying for a wildcard at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
Sushmita Nepal said that preparations for Asian Games were affected by the ongoing reconstruction work at the Satdobato Shooting Range. The site is being reconstructed for preparation of the 2019 South Asian Games, scheduled to be held in Kathmandu and Pokhara from March 9 to 18.
“We had started preparing in Satdobato, but our practice was shifted to Police Academy in Maharajgunj due to the construction works. It affected our preparations because the shooting range in police academy is very congested. We could not practice according to international criteria,” she said. “Also, we could not practice in decimal scoring ring. But we will do our best.”
Sushmita is ranked 39th, according to International Shooting Sport Federation. She was a gold medalist at the 7th National Games and was ranked number one in Nepal. She crossed the required minimum qualification score of 392 by flying colors of 397.4 out of 400 in the 10th Asian Air Gun Championship held in Japan in 2017.
Nepal Shooting Association President Pushpa Das Shrestha accused the NSC of not giving approval to use electronic system for the shooting preparation despite the association’s requests.
“We had sought NSC’s approval for the electronic system to use in practice session for 15 days, but they didn’t. If we had trained in the electronic system, we would be doing better in Indonesia,” he said.
However, NSC Member Secretary Keshav Kumar Bista said he was ignorant of such requests from the association.
“I didn’t know that Shrestha had made such request. I would have given approval if I knew about that,” he said.
Shrestha further added that the NSC has done whatever it could to help the players in their training. “Despite the lack of infrastructure, we will be taking care of the players’ training expenses. We have done whatever we could.”
He furthered that the experience the players get from the Asian Games would be helpful for the SAG and the 8th National Games.
