October 6, dang. Arnav Ghimire of Dang Tulsipur-6 is the gold medalist in shooting. After winning gold medals in the 8th and 7th National Games, he aims to take a hat-trick by winning gold in the 9th as well. But they do not believe that the target will be achieved.
The national champion, who has competed in the Asian Games, is not sure about the gold target this year because of poor preparation.
He is preparing for the 9th National Sports Competition to be held in Gandaki province. He no longer has a gun in his hand, he is practicing with bricks instead of guns.
Two rifles for shooting in Dang have also been damaged. “We need a rifle to aim and shoot,” he said, but we don’t have a working rifle. We are practicing catching bricks only by picking them up.
He is unable to understand his level because he is not able to aim. “If you can shoot, you know where the weakness is”, said Ghimire. He says that holding practice is not enough for a national sporting event.
Another player Dang Tulsipur is preparing for the Janaki Roka pistol shooting of Sub-Metropolitan City-6. He is also practicing shooting for the ninth national sporting event without a pistol. Since she did not have a pistol to prepare for the competition, she sometimes picked up a brick and sometimes a damaged pistol.
He participated in the 7th and 8th National Games and practiced with a broken pistol. She said that she could not win the medal due to lack of quick practice. Will victory come like this?’
She is also not convinced that her game will be good when she practices aimlessly.
The selection of provincial level shooting games for the ninth national sports competition to be held in Pokhara will be held in Nepalganj on October 9 and 10. For that 12 people including 6 women and 6 men have been selected from Dang.
Keshav Chaudhary, president of the District Shooting Association Dang, said that although there are good players for shooting sports, due to lack of necessary equipment like rifles and pistols, players are not able to practice.
‘There are only two rifles in the district, and they are not working’, he said, adding, ‘the only thing that has been done is to capture the damaged gun.’ He said that due to lack of guns, the players were not able to practice aiming. He pointed out that many players had to practice with bricks the size of cannons as they did not have the material to practice.
Players are also unhappy due to not being able to practice with the target. “Unless you can use the gun, you can’t even know the player’s game,” he said. But now there is nothing.
President Chowdhary says that even the best players could not be trained because they could not improve. ‘Players get frustrated when they are sent straight into tournaments without shooting’, he said, adding, ‘How can players play a good game with so much preparation?’
He said that despite repeated requests for sports equipment (rifles and pistols) for practice, there was no response. “We have been telling the shooting association that we want rifles and pistols, but they didn’t listen,” Chowdhury said.
There was no place where there was no gun to practice shooting. He said that he came out and practiced under the open sky as he was not getting a place to practice the game. He said that though he used to practice in the badminton covered hall, there is no place for practice now.
Nepal Shooting Association president Pushpadas Shrestha said that even though he heard that players practice with bricks, he did not understand. “Until now, we didn’t understand it because there was good reporting,” he said.
He said that the union is facing problems due to lack of material. However, he said that the members of the association have been allotted to their respective areas along with sports material. ‘We don’t have enough material’, he said, ‘we haven’t been able to deliver to all the places we want to.