Shooting competition takes a backseat

The issue was just trivial but it almost snowballed into a big one, threatening the very conduct of the ISSF World Cup Shotgun Shooting Championship, the main events slated to begin on Friday. Thanks to the intervention of the administrator and some other senior staff, the World Cup will go on. But not without the hiccups, as witnessed today.

The NRAI officials were seen trooping in and out of the administrator’s room to get the clay-pigeons loaded into the machines for the morning practice sessions, which start 9 a.m. However, until six this evening the rift between the staff, who are supposed to load the pigeons, and the NRAI officials remained unresolved. In fact, what sparked the delay or the “go-slow attitude” of the SAI staff was that NRAI was not taking `care’ of them. In other words, the SAI staff demanded that they all — about 25 of them — be given the official blazers like in the past. “Some us didn’t even get our food today!”

The SAI employs additional staff on daily wage basis besides their own for such meets. But this unreasonable demand by certain staff, which an NRAI official called tantamount to blackmailing, left a sore effect on them. According to a NRAI official, the federation had given blazers to some of the SAI technical staff, who were manning the trap/skeet ranges, during the Commonwealth Shooting and a subsequent championship. “At that time, we had received over 500 metres of cloth free of cost. But this time we are starved off cash and we can’t afford to meet their demands,” said the official.

NRAI secretary-general Baljit Singh Sethi was not available for comments as he was busy overseeing the arrangements for tomorrow’s opening ceremony at the Army Parade Ground, where Vice-President Krishna Kant will declare the meet open.

The administrator of the range was seen running from one range to another locating the staff who are engaged to do the job. When confronted, some of them said that the mistake was on the part of NRAI as their technical staff was missing when they went with the clay-pigeons.

In fact, there seems to be some problem with NRAI also. Their officials too refused to take custody of the 20,000 clay-pigeons sanctioned for the meet. This, the SAI officials said, was a passing-the-buck tactic used by NRAI to avoid wastage of targets on their part. “If we loan NRAI the sanctioned clay targets, it becomes easy for us to keep accounts,” said a SAI official.

Meanwhile, all Indian shooters, led by Mansher Singh, went through their paces in the morning while shooters from abroad joined them later in the day, getting the feel of the ranges.