KARACHI: National Rifle Association of Pakistan (NRAP) hopes to get four or five quota places for Paris Olympics 2024.
“We will send four to six athletes regularly in five international events during the next year,” said Executive Vice President NRAP Javed Lodhi while talking to ‘The News’.
He added that Pakistan has already won two quota places for Paris 2024 — G M Bashir in 25m RFP category and Gulfam Joseph in 10m Air Pistol category.
“Now, we have high hopes from Usman Chand and Farrukh Nadeem to win quotas in Skeet and Trap, respectively. We are also want at least one female shooter to get a quota in 10m Air Pistol category in the next one year,” said Javed.
He said that the association had not received a single penny from Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) till now this year.
“NRAP sent G M Bashir to Kuwait for two weeks for training (from 18 February to 3 April) with a world renowned coach with all expenses arranged through Asian Shooting Confederation,” said Javed.
Talking about low performance by shotgun shooters in the country over the years, he said that till 1971 the NRAP headquarters were in Dhaka and they focused on rifle and pistol events only. Till 1971, anyone could go to Olympics and there was no qualification.
“All athletes from Pakistan who participated in Olympics before 1971 had no world standings and finished almost at the bottom,” said Javed. He added that NRAP was revived in 1986 and since then Khurram Inam has participated in three Olympics (2000, 2004, 2012) in skeet category.
It is pertinent to mention here that in the 1960 Olympics, Saifi Chauhdry took part in 3-position rifle and rifle prone events, Abdul Wain featured in free rifle event, Zafar Ahmad participated in the free pistol event, and M Iqbal participated in the rapid fire pistol event.
In 2016 and 2020 Olympics, once again rifle and pistol shooters took the lead when G M Bashir and Khalil Akthar featured in rapid fire pistol events and Minhal Suhail and Gulfam Joseph took part in air rifle and air pistol events, respectively.
Our Correspondent