Two shooters to see action in online competition

While the world's top shooters transformed their living rooms into makeshift ranges and participated in newly-fashioned online competitions in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in late April, Bangladeshi shooters sat idle due to an internal conflict between the Bangladesh Shooting Sports Federation (BSSF) president and secretary general.

The online competitions, conceptualised by former Indian rifle shooter Shimon Sharif, kept international shooters in business, making the sport a rarity as other disciplines had shut shop.

Now, two Bangladesh shooters are set to gather that experience for the first time on October 17, thanks to the BSSF ad-hoc committee, which arranged an online shooting competition named after Sheikh Russel. Seven countries -- India, Pakistan, Bhutan, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and Bangladesh -- will participate.

Two shooters -- one male and one female -- from each country will take part in 10m Air Rifle events separately. They will perform in the physical presence of one jury member and their performance will be monitored online through cameras. There will not be a final round; instead, the qualification round consisting of 60 shots will be considered the final round.

"Any participant can use his personal range but he/she must be accompanied by an ISSF jury member, who will send the scores for compilation as the whole competition will be monitored," said BSSF member Mustaque Waise, adding that Bangladeshi shooters would use the Gulshan Shooting Complex range.

"We have arranged this tournament to mark the birthday of Sheikh Russel.  Besides, such online competitions are happening all over the world. The new committee is trying to bring something new in shooting in a bid to make it functional as the shooters have been out of action for a long period," said Waise, also a former BSSF chief operating officer.

While most local shooters are still out of action, Abdulllah Hel Baki, Risalatul Islam, Syeda Atkia Hasan Disha, Umme Jakia Sultana Tumpa -- returned to training last month to ensure their Tokyo scholarships from the Olympic committee. Two of them will represent Bangladesh after going through three competitions for selection.

So far, Baki and Tumpa are ahead of Risalatul and Disha at the end of the second competition held on Thursday. The final round will take place on Saturday, just a day before the start of the online competition. 

"Today Baki scored better (624.9) than he did in his first competition (622.3) while Tumpa has done better than Disha in the first two competitions. Everything will be finalised on Saturday," said coach Golam Shafiuddin Khan. "As they were out of action for a long time, they are now having trouble with the triggers of rifles. They need time to return to their normal performance."

Shafiuddin believes participating in the online competition will be a new experience for the shooters and that they will also develop the requisite temperament for competitions through those experiences.