The Commonwealth Games are under way in India. Here is a link to some shooting related photos: http://www.cbc.ca/commonwealthgames/…llery_3897.xml
And you will find the shooting schedule here: http://www.cbc.ca/commonwealthgames/story/2010/09/13/spc-sport-shooting.html
From Wikipedia:
The Commonwealth Games is an international, multi-sport event which has been held quadriennially (except 1942 and 1946 during the outbreak of World War II) and features competitions involving thousands of elite athletes from members of the Commonwealth of Nations.
As well as many Olympic sports, the Games also include some sports that are played mainly in Commonwealth countries, such as lawn bowls, rugby sevens and netball.[1] The Games are overseen by the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF), which also controls the sporting programme and selects the host cities. The host city is selected from across the Commonwealth, with eighteen cities in seven countries having hosted it.
The event was first held in 1930 under the title of the British Empire Games in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The event was renamed as the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in 1954, the British Commonwealth Games in 1970, and gained its current title in 1978. Only six teams have attended every Commonwealth Games: Australia, Canada, England, New Zealand, Scotland and Wales. Australia has been the highest achieving team for ten games, England for seven and Canada for one.
There are currently 54 members of the Commonwealth of Nations, and 71 teams participate in the Games. The four Home Nations of the United Kingdom – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – send separate teams to the Commonwealth Games, and individual teams are also sent from the British Crown dependencies of Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man (unlike at the Olympic Games, where the combined “Great Britain” team represents all four home nations and the Crown dependencies). Many of the British overseas territories also send their own teams. The Australian external territory of Norfolk Island also sends its own team, as do the Cook Islands and Niue, two states in free association with New Zealand. It has been reported that Tokelau, another dependency of New Zealand will be sending a team to the 2010 Games in New Delhi, India.
from the Commonwealth Games website here:
After winning India’s first gold medal at Delhi 2010, Gagan Narang today said shooting has achieved so much success in the recent past that it has become the number one sport in the country.
Gagan, along with Beijing Olympic gold medalist Abhinav Bindra, today clinched the 10m air rifle gold and hours after the triumph at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, the unassuming shooter asserted that “Shooting is the number 1 sport in the country at the moment”.
“If you go by medals shooters win in international competitions and their performance, then shooting is the number one,” Gagan told PTI. “Unlike other sports, we cannot express our feelings in front of the media or fans, because shooting is like that,” Gagan said.
When on song, the Hyderabadi makes shooting look like child’s play, but when asked if it comes easy to him, he instantly nooded in disagreement. “It’s never a cakewalk, it’s all about hard work. It takes a lot of energy, and above all, we are all shooting at home, so the expectations are tremendous,” Gagan said.
Asked if he is looking to emulate Samresh Jung’s feat of winning five gold medals the last edition of the Games in Melbourne in 2006, Gagan said, “I am not thinking about that right now and just taking things one event at a time, one day at a time.”
Earlier, the world record holder, after coming off a none-too-impressive season, shot a spectacular sequence of 99, 100, 100, 99, 100, 100 for a total of 598, while Bindra shot 100, 98 ,99, 100, 99, 99 to total 595 to give India the first gold medal in the quadrennial sporting extravaganza. Meanwhile, Bindra said majority of Indians would be glued to the television sets to watch the Games and not the Test match between India and Australia in Mohali, where the hosts prevailed in a nail-biter to eke out a narrow one-wicket win.
“I am very sure that they are watching the Commonwealth games,” Bindra said. “I would want to live under the illusion that our gold medal win make headlines tomorrow,” he said tongue-in-cheek, referring to the cricket match.
“It’s always a great feeling to win gold. This one is special as this is first big medal at home,” said Bindra, who has not won a single major event since bagging gold in 10m air rifle event in Beijing two years ago.
“There are huge expectations and a lot of pressure was there on us, it was not easy for me, for sure.” Asked if the 2012 London Olympics is on his mind, Bindra replied in negative.
“I am not looking at the London Games right now. I am taking one event at a time, London is still two years to go,” he said.
National coach Sunny Thomas credited Bindra and Gagan for the rise in popularity of shooting in India. “Thanks to these two guys,” Thomas said pointing to the two shooters, before adding, “the profile of shooting has gone up. The media has started following shooting because of Abhinav and Gagan.” Fairly satisfied with the results on the first day of the shooting event, Thomas said, “We have done a good job. But more than medals, we are concerned about performance. If we perform well, medals will follow.” On India’s talent pool, Thomas said, “I am glad that we have the youngest team in the world. In shooting 40-45 is not very old and we have got a very young team.”
Asked if he was disappointed after Omkar Singh and Deepak Sharma failed to win the gold medal,” the coach said, “We have to understand that they are not machines.” Anisa Sayeed, who bagged the top prize in pairs 25m pistol for women with Rahi Sarnobat, said that they were confident of winning the gold. “After the half precision, we knew we would win,” she said. -PTI
