Shooters disappointed with Kuwait event losing Olympic status
Hopes of 854 Asian shooters, along with 101 Indians, were shattered when they learnt that Olympic qualifying status of Kuwait's championship was lost. ISSF would now host the next Quota event in January or February 2016. Shotgun shooter Shagun Chowdhary said that they had trained very hard for the event and were really disappointed. The Kuwait Asian Championship would take place between November 1-12.
Men's Shooting was included in Olympics games since the games' existence in 1896. Till 1900, pigeons were used as moving targests and after that replaced with clay targets. Shooting was removed from Olympics in 1928 and reintroduced in 1932 with 2 events. In 1967, women were included in the shooting event. As of now, there are 15 events- 9 for men, 6 for women.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) had revoked the Olympic qualifying status from the Asian Shooting Championship (ASC) which was supposed to take place in Kuwait. The IOC Executive board said that the status was revoked on request of the International Sports Shooting Federation (ISSF). Kuwaiti Immigration Department had denied visa to an Israeli delegate, following which the IOC took this decision.
IOC said the denial of visa to Yair Davidovich from Israel went against its non-discrimination principle of the Olympic Charter. Yair was the designated technical delegate from the ISSF, who was due to supervise the event on behalf of the ISSF. Another reason was the ban imposed on Kuwait Olympic Committee from all Games-related activities due to interference of Kuwait government.
After Asian championship lost its Olympic status, India had bid to host the last Olympic quota shooting tournament for Asia. The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) had presented its bid to the Asian Shooting Confederation. Kazakhstan and Qatar had also presented their bids. ISSF would soon notify the countries which had presented their bids for the same.
The qualification system for shooting at Olympic Games is based on quota places due to limited number of qualification slots. A Quota Place is a qualification ticket to enter the Games, awarded by the ISSF to those athletes who reach the best results during designated ISSF Olympic Qualification competitions. ISSF World Championships, ISSF World Cups, Continental Championships or Continental Games are few designated games.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) had assigned 390 Quota Places to the ISSF for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
India has so far won eight quota spots- Jitu Rai, Abhinav Bindra, Gagan Narang, Apurvi Chandela, Gurpreet Singh, Prakash Nanjappa, Chain Singh and Mairaj Khan.
