New Delhi, Aug 4 (IANS) India’s top marksmen and women assembled here at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting range as the preparatory camp for the 16th Asian Shooting Championships (ASC) got underway here on Monday.

The championships will be held from August 16 to 30 at Shymkent in Kazakhstan, with India sending the largest contingent, comprising 182 shooters across pistol, rifle, and shotgun in both Olympic and Non-Olympic events. The championships will see an intense fight for continental dominance between Asian shooting powerhouses ahead of next year’s Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan.

The preparatory camp follows the national camp, which was conducted last month in Dehradun for rifle and pistol and Bhopal for shotgun athletes, the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) informed in a release on Monday.

Among the 182 athletes, 35 seniors and 36 juniors will travel at government cost, and the rest of the athletes will travel at their own cost as per tournament entry rules. A total of 734 athletes from 28 countries have so far entered the fray in this edition of ASC. Hosts Kazakhstan will have the second largest contingent with over 100 athletes, while South Korea and China will send 70 and 47 athletes, respectively.

The first batch of the Indian squad will include the pistol and skeet shooters who will leave for the Central Asian country on August 14, while the rifle shooters will leave on August 17. The remaining shooters will leave on August 20, and the shooters who are participating in the non-Olympic events will leave on August 24.

In the 15th Asian Shooting Championships 2023 held at Changwon, South Korea, India finished third in the medal tally behind China and South Korea with a total of 19 medals, including six gold, eight silver, and five bronze medals.

–IANS

bsk/