The first day, the first competition of the season and the first year of the current Olympic cycle.
The ISSF World Cup Stage 1 in New Delhi (IND) will mark the start of a new era for the Shooting sport, as many innovations will be brought onstage during the fifteen Rifle, Pistol and Shotgun events.
10m Air Rifle Women
The first medals of the season will be awarded in the women’s 10m Air Rifle event, where home favourite Pooja Ghatkar will try to repeat what she did in January 2016, when she placed 3rd and claimed the Olympic quota place for India at the Asia Olympic Qualifying Competition.
The Gold medalist in that competition, Iran’s Najmeh Khedmati, will also be on of the Gold medalist contender, alongside Chinese promising 19-year-old Shi Mengyao, who secured two ISSF World Cup medal during her debut season in 2016, and her teammates Dong Lijie and Wu Mingyang.
Croatia’s Sjezana Pejcic, winner of five ISSF World Cup medals in the women’s 10m Air Rifle, will also be part of the event.
10m Air Rifle Men
The second final match of the day will be the 10m Air Rifle Men, where the Indian National Team will bring Deepak Kumar, Ravi Kumar and Satyendra Singh on the firing line. All of them will be looking for their first medal in an ISSF competition.
After missing the podium in this event for the whole 2016 season, Hungary’s Peter Sidi will battle for what would be his 22nd career World Cup medal in this event, an achievement that would strengthen his third place in the all-time World Cup medal standings of the 10m Air Rifle Men event.
Among the other participants, the Silver and Bronze medalists of last year’s World Cup stage in Baku (AZE), Hossein Bagheri of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Sergey Richter of Israel, will also compete in the event.
Trap Women
Emerging from the athletes who will compete for the first Shotgun final in New Delhi, the Trap Women Silver medalist of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, New Zealand’s Natalie Rooney, will compete for the first World Cup Gold medal of her career, coming from the one she claimed at the ISSF World Cup Final in Rome (ITA), in October 2016.
Italy’s Jessica Rossi, Olympic Gold medalist at London 2012, will be the veteran of the Italian selection, who also includes the 20-year-old Alessia Iezzi and the 18-year-old Maria Lucia Palmitessa.
Also competing for one of the six spots in the final, experienced shooter Fatima Galvez of Spain and Satu Makela-Nummela of Finland, respectively winners of seven and six ISSF World Cup medals, and Lebanon’s Ray Bassil, coming from a season where she won one Gold and two Silver medals during the 2016 ISSF World Cup Series.
The finals of the three Shooting events will be streamed live on the ISSF website, on the Federation’s Livestream channel and on its Facebook official page.
News and updates about the whole competition will also be posted on the other ISSF social media profiles: Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Weibo and Youku.