Rathore, Heena contenders for Olympic berth

BANGALORE: The four wise men of the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) and two government nominees will sit down at Rudrapur in Uttarakhand on Sunday to finalize the squad for the London Olympics with pistol shooter Heena Sidhu and Athens Olympics silver medallist Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore emerging as strong contenders to win a berth.
Also in the running for a berth in the Games are pistol shooter Anisa Sayyed and rifle shooters Joydeep Karmakar and Sushil Ghaley.
"It has been unanimously decided to exchange the third quota we won in men's rifle 3-position through Imran Hassan Khan as we already have two entries in Sanjeev Rajput and Gagan Narang," national coach Sunny Thomas said.
The coach said that Karmakar and Ghaley comes into the picture to grab the place of rifle prone shooter Hari Om Singh whose performance has dipped after winning the quota in the World Championship in 2010.
The selectors will have to make a tough call in deciding who will take the place of Imran Hassan. According to sources, both Rathore and Heena are neck-and-neck in the race with the latter having a slight edge due to her consistent scores over the past few years.
Heena, who won the 10m air pistol pairs gold with Annu Raj Singh at the CWG in Delhi, was also part of the team that won the silver medal in the Guangzhou Asiad. In 2009, she also won the silver in the Beijing World Cup. Last month, she missed the quota by 0.9 points at the Asian meet.