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The Paris Olympics 2024 is less than 50 days away and the Indian contingent is gearing up for the showpiece event to bring home medals. Till date, Indian shooters have four medals at the Summer Games, with legends like Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and Abhinav Bindra setting the building blocks.
A few days back, India announced a 15-member shooting contingent. The nation can field 21 athletes in the sport and will add six more shooters after the ISSF World Cup Shotgun 2024 concludes.
In this piece, we will look at the top shooters who have failed to make it to the squad.
#1 Akhil Sheoran
Supported by the OGQ (Olympic Gold Quest), 29-year-old shooter Akhil Sheoran won't be going to the Summer Games. A gold medalist at the World Championships 2023 at Baku, Sheoran excels in the 50m rifle discipline.
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It is a surprise to see Sheoran not making it to the squad. Last year, he achieved the qualification mark for the Summer Games. This year in January, he won bronze at the Cairo World Cup too. But Sheoran's best achievement came two months later in March when he surpassed Jiri Privratsky's world record with a score of 468.4 at the Polish Grand Prix.
#2 Tilottama Sen
Tilottama Sen, all of 16, came to the limelight after she won silver in the 10m air rifle discipline at the World Cup in Cairo in 2023. She became a Paris Olympics hopeful after bagging silver at the Asian Shooting Championships in South Korea.
Sen could have become the third youngest Indian to partake at an Olympics if she had made the cut. Unfortunately, she came fifth in the final selections held in Bhopal in May this year.
#3 Rudrankksh Patil
A former World No. 1, Rudrankksh Patil too will be missing out on the Paris Olympics. Patil broke the world record in the 10m air rifle discipline at the Hangzhou Asian Games and set up a new standard just at the age of 19. He also won gold in the World Cup in 2023 and World Championships in 2022.
But again, similar to Akhil Sheoran, Patil has been left out of the squad.
