Pakistan will feature in this year’s World Cup Shooting in Azerbaijan in a bid to qualify for the 2016 Olympics. Mr Riaz Ahmed Khan, the executive vice-president of the NRAP was quite optimistic about this event. He stated that, “The way our shooters have performed in the last couple of international events and in 2014 Incheon Asian Games, they can gain direct entry into the 2016 Olympics,”
A 5 to 7 member squad will be sent to the world cup competitions held in Azerbaijan city Gabala from August 6 to 16. This world cup is being organized by the International Sports Shooting Federation in collaboration with Azerbaijan. The event would give the Pakistani shooters to participate in the categories of pistol, air rifle and shot gun and then qualify directly for the next year’s Rio Olympics.
A minimum qualifying score of 15 has been achieved by both the men and women shooters in Pakistan. While Ghulam Mustafa Bashir and Zeeshan Shakir have been able to achieve high scores in rapid-fire pistol and air rifle competitions. In the 2014 Asiad, Zeeshan achieved the score of 618/654 in the presence of world-class shooters from India, and Bashir narrowly missed direct entry into the Olympics in rapid-fire pistol with a score of 567/600. Minhal, a female Pakistan shooter, mustered a fine score of 409/436 in air rifle.
In November this year, Pakistan shooters will be featuring in the Asian Shooting Championship in Kuwait.