The omission of shooting as one of the events at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham had hit the Indian Olympic sports movement hard. India has high hopes of winning medals at the Games and is considered a high-priority sport by the Sports Authority of India. Even as the Indian Olympic Association has requested the Union government to boycott the CWG 2022 to protest against the omission of shooting, there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel.
According to top officials of the sport in India and International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF), the pressure on the Organising Committee of the Birmingham CWG to reconsider the decision to omit shooting, has increased immensely in past few days. THE WEEK has reliably learnt it is because of a fresh push from the West Midland Parliamentary Group in England. It has, reportedly, summoned officials of the Organising Committee to, probably, discuss why the Executive Committee of the CWG decide to exclude the sport.
It may be noted that IOA President Narinder K. Batra, along with Boxing Federation of India president Ajay Singh, met Union Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju on Saturday to discuss the boycott of the CWG to protest against the exclusion of shooting. The minister suggested to the IOA to hold a meeting with the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) President Dame Louise Martin and then revert to him. The Indian Government is also unhappy over the omission, having spent a large amount of funds for shooters' training and competitions.
In fact, shooting officials believe that there is a chance that the sport will be included as an “extra” event if the Games Organising Committee relents. The ISSF, too, has put its weight behind India by agreeing to fund the upgradation of the shooting range and spending on all facilities necessary in Bisley—the shooting range which is barely an hour and half from Birmingham and was the venue for the Manchester CWG in 2002.
National Rifle Association of India President Raninder Singh while releasing details of the communication over the matter, on NRAI's official website, noted that that the distance between Manchester and Bisley shooting range was far more than between Birmingham and Bisley and found the reasons stated by the CWG Organising Committee absurd. As per the report, the ISSF is willing to spend GBP 780,000 to bring the Bisley range up to the required standards, and to set up a satellite village even though it is the host city's duty to do so. It has also decided to spend an extra GBP 40,000 for stay of officials whom the host Organising Committee would depute to conduct the competition.
Meanwhile, the CGF president has announced his willingness to come and meet the IOA officials to discuss the threat of a boycott by India and that it would want India to participate wholeheartedly in the 2022 Games. The CGF had taken the position that it was the host nation's prerogative to decide the fate of shooting—which has always been an optional sport in the CWG. It was in the CGF's executive board meeting in June earlier this year that shooting was dropped from the events list for the 2022 edition.
