ISSF World Cup: Qatar arrives, UK and Brazil to go into hard quarantine on arrival

Qatar on Thursday became the first country to arrive for the upcoming combined shooting world cup in Delhi while Brazil and UK are reaching on Friday, after which they will go into a seven-day hard quarantine. Six shooters and their support staff from Qatar reached the national capital on Thursday. Both Brazil and United Kingdom have witnessed a spike in the number of COVID-19 cases in recent times.

Participants, coaches and officials from the two countries will be quarantined at the Radisson Hotel situated close to the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range, venue for the March 18-29 World Cup. The International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) tournament will see shooters from more than 40 countries, including UK and Brazil, taking part. Last month, Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju had said that a shorter and convenient quarantine period would be put in place for the world cup in order to not discourage international shooters from competing at the event.

"I have already assured that India will conduct international tournaments in such a way that COVID protocols will be followed but foreign players will not be staying in long quarantine and will not be discouraged to participate," Rijiju had said. Before that, a request was placed before the ministry that shooters be exempted from hard quarantine of 14 days and foreign delegates be given vaccine shots on priority. Hosts India will field a strong 57-member squad in the tournament. The squad was named by the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) last month.

The team comprises all 15 Tokyo Olympics quota winners, including Anjum Moudgil, Divyansh Singh Panwar, Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Choudhary. Commonwealth Games gold-medallist Anish Bhanwala was also picked in the 25m rapid pistol team. The competition will be a combined event for rifle, pistol and shotgun shooters featuring as many as 30 different events.

More than 40 countries have so far confirmed their entries, including South Korea, Singapore, USA, United Kingdom, Iran, Ukraine, France, Hungary, Italy, Thailand and Turkey. Some countries which are not sending their teams include the likes of China, Japan, Germany, Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Kuwait and Malaysia.