agencies
NEW DELHI, Nov 17: The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) will award just two bonus points to Olympic quota winners in fire-arm category and one to air weapons shooters after making a major amendment to its selection policy for the 2024 Paris Games.
Earlier, an Olympic quota winner earned as many as 10 bonus points for clinching a World Championship gold, while a fourth-place finisher got five points. Similarly in World Cups, a gold medallist earned six bonus points, a silver medallist four and a bronze medallist two.
These bonus points gave shooters who earned quota places for the country in events such as the World Cups, World Championships and Asian events, a huge advantage over other Olympic aspirants, who could not cover that gap in trials to select the squad for the global showpiece.
The federation, its hands tied by its own policy, was also left with no choice but to send athletes with the most points even when it knew they were not in the best of form.
But with shooters going without a medal in the last two Olympics -- 2016 Rio and 2020 Tokyo -- the NRAI has amended the policy.
As per the amended policy, only one or two bonus points, depending on the event, will be added to the average of three scores for quota winners in Olympic trials, which the federation will conduct in May to select the squad for the showpiece event.
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