‘Pakistan can win shooting medal at Paris Olympics’

LAHORE: A senior official of National Rifle Association of Pakistan (NRAP) on Thursday said that this time the country can win medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics in shooting.

“There is a possibility of winning a medal in the Olympics this time in shooting. There is definitely a chance,” NRAP Executive Vice-President Javed Lodhi told ‘The News’ in an interview.

“Look, in the World Championship in Egypt Ghulam Mustafa Bashir claimed bronze medal. In the World Championship a nation can field five shooters in an event while in the Olympics a country can field two shooters in an event. So if a shooter wins a medal in the World Championship so he can also snare a medal in the Olympics. Both Ghulam Mustafa Bashir and Joseph Gulfam can show wonders,” Lodhi said.

“If Kishmala Talat also qualifies then her medal chance also cannot be ruled out. She is a strong girl and can do anything,” Lodhi said.

The country’s ace shooter Ghulam Mustafa Bashir won bronze in the 2022 World Championship in Egypt in 25 metre rapid fire pistol and earned a quota place at the 2024 Paris Olympics. In the same championship, Joseph Gulfam also qualified for the Paris Olympics in the 10m air pistol.

With four Olympics qualifying events yet in hand, a few more national shooters may qualify for the world’s most prestigious extravaganza.

Lodhi said that three more shooters also have the chance to make a cut for the Olympics. “There are three more shooters who can qualify, Kishmala, Usman Chand and Farrukh Nadeem. Kishmala has been playing very well and she has a good chance. We have high hopes from Usman and Farrukh but you know competition is very tough in shotgun,” Lodhi said.

Kishmala won bronze in 10 metre air pistol in the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou last summer.

“We are sending five shooters to the Jakarta event. The squad includes the already qualified duo of GM Bashir and Jospeh and the three others are female shooters,” Lodhi said.

“It is not yet known whether we will go to Rio de Janeiro event or not. If our shooter Kishmala qualifies via Asian Championship then there will be no benefit of sending shooters to the Rio World Qualification event which will be very costly. If anything does not happen in Jakarta then we will take the chance of Rio,” Lodhi said.

“Kishmala is a full-time student and after winning bronze in the Asian Games she came to the Asian Championship where she fought well. After that she had to study. We have held a camp here under a foreign coach. We have put foreign shooters in the camp and a shooter from Kuwait who the coach was imparting training,” Lodhi said.

“We will avail ourselves of maximum events of the four. Of them the two are of rifle/pistol while the two are of shotgun. Those who have chance to earn Olympics quota will inshaAllah be sent to flex their muscles,” he said.

“We are repeatedly sending our shooters to international events. We had sent around ten shooters to the Asia Championship held in Korea. If you give them chances repeatedly then they get the opportunities to click on a day,” Lodhi said.

In 2016 Rio Olympics two Pakistani shooters featured and in the 2022 Tokyo Olympics three participated and now two have already qualified. “Both GM Bashir and Gulfam Jospeh qualified in the first World Championship in which the world’s top shooters were there,” Lodhi pointed out.

Lodhi lamented lack of state patronage. “Look, we have been doing all this without state’s financial assistance. Now we will go with the full squad to Jakarta and the other events and we have managed all this,” Lodhi said.