Shooter Vijay Kumar fails to make it to rapid fire team for Asian Games

New Delhi: Olympic medallist Vijay Kumar has missed out on a berth in his pet event - rapid fire pistol - for the upcoming Asian Games but he is still part of the strong 43-members squad, which will be spearheaded by shooting ace Abhinav Bindra.

The multi-sport extravaganza event will be held in Incheon, South Korea from September 19.

The selection committee of the National Rifle Association of India picked the team during a meeting at its headquarters here.

"His (Vijay's) scores haven't been good enough in recent times and as you all know, as per our selection policy, only the last six scores are taken into account while deciding on a shooter," an NRAI official said.

Beijing Olympic gold medallist Bindra, who has just won the top prize at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, will, as usual, represent India in 10-metre air rifle alongside Sanjeev Rajput and Ravi Kumar.

Like it was with the CWG squad, multiple medallist Gagan Narang will not be part of the 10 metre air rifle team, but will compete in rifle prone (Joydeep Karmakar and Hariom Singh being the other two members) and rifle 3 position (Sanjeev Rajput and Chain Singh).

London Olympics silver medallist Vijay Kumar will be part of the centre fire pistol team alongside Pemba Tamang and Gurpreet Singh. Vijay failed to qualify for the finals of rapid fire pistol at the just-concluded Glasgow CWG.

Trap will be taken care of by Manavjit Singh Sandhu, Mansher Singh and Kynan Chenai while double trap event will have Ankur Mittal, Mohd Asab and Sangram Dahiya.

The in-form world number one Jitu Rai will compete in free pistol and will have Om Prakash and Omkar Singh for company. Rai will also be seen in action in air pistol along with Prakash Nanjappa and Samresh Jung.

In the women's section, CWG winners Rahi Sarnobat, Anisa Sayyed will represent India in sports pistol alongside Heena Sidhu.

Heena will also compete in air pistol, which will also have Shweta Chaudhary and Malaika Goel.

The experienced Anjali Bhagwat will once again be seen in action in rifle 3 position along with Lajja Gausawami and Tejaswini Muley.

Apurvi Chandela, Raj Chaudhary and Ayonika Paul will form the air rifle team.

In women's trap, India's representatives will be Shreyasi Singh, Seema Tomar and Shagun Chowdhary. Arti Singh Rao and Rashmee Rathore will make the skeet team while Shreyasi, Varsha Varman and Shagun will form the double trap team.