KARACHI: "Anna Ibtisam and Kishmala Talat are bright young talents for Pakistan and National Rifle Association of Pakistan (NRAP) should target 2028 Olympics for them to qualify,” said Hammad ul Haq, a sports analyst based in Netherlands.
“They are young talented shooters but they have not yet scored above 570 at international level. This score is not going to be enough for them to qualify for Olympics. The NRAP should target 2028 Olympics with these two, not 2024," he added.
Kishmala played World Championships and World Cup in 2022 where she scored 560 and 569, respectively, to take 76th and 20th positions. Anna played World Championships in 2022 and scored 557 to secure 84th position.
It is worth adding here that NRAP wants to target three more qualification spots for Paris 2024 with Usman Chand (Skeet), Khurram Nadeem (Trap), and Anna/Kishmala (10m air pistol).
“Usman Chand is the most likely to qualify in my view. My main concern is his inability to get 120 plus scores consistently.
“His average is around 117 with the highest score being 122. These scores will never be enough to qualify, as he is then dependent on others to falter,” said Hammad.
He added that this can mainly happen in Asian competitions, as Asian skeet shooters have proven to be more error prone in the recent past.
“Usman needs to target the 4 spots available in the two Asian-level championships or seek an invitation (based on universality principle),” said Hammad.
In order to get an invitation, he added, Usman needs to drastically improve his ranking as his current ranking for the Olympics is 65 and he needs to be in the top 40.
Our Correspondent