Manu Bhaker leads Indian shooting contingent for first two ISSF World Cups

Manu Bhaker is the only athlete to start in two individual events.

The international Shooting season kicks off with a two-legged South American sojourn in April, and the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) has duly announced a 35-member Indian team (attached), for both the combined (Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun) International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Cups coming up in Buenos Aires, Argentina (Apr 1-11) and Lima, Peru (Apr 13-22) in just over five weeks from now.

Double Olympic bronze medalist Manu Bhaker will once again be the only Indian athlete to start in two individual events, the women’s 10m air pistol and the women’s 25m pistol, while among other Paris Olympians to have retained their place in the team are Anish and Vijayveer Sidhu (men’s 25m rapid-fire pistol), Esha Singh (women’s 25m pistol), Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar (men’s 50m rifle 3 positions), Sift Kaur Samra and Shriyanka Sadangi (women’s 50m rifle 3 positions), Arjun Babuta (men’s 10m air rifle), Prithviraj Tondaiman (men’s trap), Anant Jeet Singh Naruka (men’s skeet) and Raiza Dhillon (women’s skeet).

A national camp ahead of the team’s departure is scheduled to begin at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting range in Delhi from March 14, 2025.

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Sharing his thoughts on the first Indian team post the successful Paris Olympics campaign, Kr. Sultan Singh, Secretary General, NRAI, said, “India’s best shooters will once again embark upon conquering the best in the world.

The Government of India and the Ministry of Sports have been helping us immensely in fine-tuning our preparations and training and after the heartening performance in the Paris Olympics, a new responsibility rests on the entire Shooting fraternity to raise the bar even higher. We are confident that those selected for the international season openers will come out with flying colours.”

The biggest draw on the ISSF calendar this year will be the World Championships scheduled for October (Shotgun) and November (Rifle/Pistol). There will be a total of three World Cup stages for each discipline while two junior world cups, the second among them in New Delhi in September, are also scheduled. Also on the international roster, this year is the 16th Asian Championships in Kazakhstan in August.

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