Granada (Spain), April 6 (IANS) Indian shooters will eye a strong start to the international rifle/pistol season as the mixed team events will kickstart the ISSF Rifle/Pistol World Cup Granada at the Las Gabias Shooting Range in Granada, Spain, on Tuesday. The medals of the mixed team events in 10m Air Rifle and 10m Air Pistol will be decided on the opening day on Tuesday.

The competition will start with the qualification for the 10m Air Pistol mixed team at 12:45 IST (9:15 AM local time) and the final is scheduled for 16:30 IST (1 PM local time). The qualification for the 10m Air Rifle mixed team will start at 15:45 IST (12:15 PM local time), and the final is scheduled for 19:30 IST (4 PM local time).

In the pistol event, reigning Asian Games champion Palak Gulia will pair up with 2024 Junior World Champion in 25m pistol, Mukesh Nelavalli, while 2025 World Cup Final silver medallist Sainyam will team up with Ujjawal Malik.

They will be up against some of the accomplished shooters in the discipline, consisting of reigning Olympic and World champions. China, which had skipped the Asian Championships in New Delhi, has entered two world-class pairings in its first event of the season. Reigning mixed team world champions Hu Kai and Yao Qianxun, and Paris Olympics gold medallist Xie Yu, along with 21-year-old former Junior World Championship medallist Shen Yiyao, will pose the biggest challenge for the rest of the field.

Other prominent pairings include Paris Olympics silver medallist Sevval Ilayda Tarhan and Yusuf Dikec of Turkey, Zorana Arunovic and Damir Mikec of Serbia, Veronika Major and Akos Karoly Nagy of Hungary, and Christian Reitz and Svenja Berge of Germany.

In the 10m Air Rifle event, India will be represented by the pairings of Sonam Uttam Maskar and Gajanan Shahdev Khandagale, and Shruti and Arshdeep Singh.

The young pairs will be up against World Number 1 in men and women, and the reigning World Champions, Sheng Lihao and Wang Zifei, once again from China. The second Chinese pairing will be Ma Sihan and Zhang Qianying.

The other pairings in the fray for medals are Jeanette Hegg Duestad and Jon-Hermann Hegg of Norway, Current 10m Air Rifle men’s World champion Maximilian Dallinger and Hannah Steffen-Dix of Germany, and Istavan Peni and Eszter Denes of Hungary.

As per the laid-down selection policy, India has fielded shooters ranked between 4 and 6 in the domestic national rankings. With the world championships at the end of the year in Doha, awarding the first Los Angeles 2028 quota places, the world’s top guns will be looking to test their competitive edge early, but it is also an excellent opportunity for India to test its depth with the additional goal of Asian Games success lurking ahead.

–IANS

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