Speculation over the composition of the shooting squad for the Beijing Games ended on Tuesday, with chief national coach Sunny Thomas saying those who had achieved a ‘quota place’ for the country will go ahead and represent the nation in the Summer Olympics.

“There is no ambiguity. It has been decided that irrespective of poor performance, shooters who have achieved Olympics berths will represent the country,” he said from Munich, where the Indian marksmen are taking part in the World Cup competition.

Earlier in March, NRAI had decided to have a back-up team of five shooters in the rifle and pistol events. In case quota place winners failed to maintain their performance, NRAI had ready replacements. Six rifle and pistol shooters apart, three in the shotgun events had also achieved berths for Beijing.

But today, Thomas changed his statement, saying the above decision was taken in the federation’s governing body meeting recently. “Before Beijing, the NRAI wants the shooters to train with free minds,” he added.

One cannot ignore the fact that despite foreign exposures, the performances of top shooters, apart from rifle shooter Gagan Narang (in pix), haven’t been encouraging. At the recent Beijing World Cup, Narang was the only medal winner in air rifle, picking a bronze. In Munich, he was among the top eight.

Other shooters — Anjali Bhagwat, Abhinav Bindra, Sanjeev Rajput, Avneet Sidhu and Samresh Jung — have been off target.

The chief coach wasn’t predicting a good show at the fortcoming Milan World Cup either, prefering to wait and watch. “Hopefully they will do better,” he said.

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