Samresh Jung has been around enough to realise that shooting can be as unpredictable as a Twenty20 cricket match and the ace pistol shooter remains non-committal about his medal prospect in the Beijing Olympic Games.
NEW DELHI: Samresh Jung has been around enough to realise that shooting can be as unpredictable as a Twenty20 cricket match and the ace pistol shooter remains non-committal about his medal prospect in the Beijing Olympic Games.
Jung says the subtleties make shooting such difficult that even a world champion cannot guarantee an Olympic medal.
“Everything depends on how you perform on that particular day. We prepare a lot but there is so much pressure, even a minor mistake can make a big difference. “It is like Twenty20 cricket where anyone can win on their day,” the marksman said.
Samresh, adjudged Best athlete of the Melbourne Commonwealth games 2006 with seven medals, has won an Olympic quota in men’s 10m air pistol at Munich World Cup last year. Though he made the cut for Beijing, Jung is far from happy with shooting infrastructure in the country.
“Countries like Russia, China and Europe begin their Olympic preparation quite early, unlike us. We get maximum one or two years for serious training.” said the shooter, who is leaving for Germany next week.
“China has built 28 world class ranges in 2005 and their target was not the Beijing Olympic but London Olympics 2012. In contrast, we don’t have sufficient shooting ranges in India and those available are not of very high standard either,” rued the shooter.
Still, Jung feels the Indian shooters have done reasonably well within the limitations.
“Gagan (Narang) scored perfect 600 in Pilzen, while many other shooters are performing well. Still we cannot ignore the loopholes in the system,” he said.
“We need to have a proper programme for the juniors and enough ranges with the equipments. Otherwise, medal in Olympic Games will remain a distant dream. Shortage of bullets is also a major worry,” said the shooter. Jung and fellow shooters would be expected to match the feat of Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore who won the double trap silver medal in the 2004 Athens Olympics. Jung believes with most of the tournaments doubling up as selection trials, shooters are left with hardly any chance for experimentation.
“In India we have only 4-5 tournaments and they are also selection trials where we don’t have scope for experiments. We must have matches without consequences to improve our performance.” said Jung.
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