It was another golden day for India at the ongoing Commonwealth Games in Birmingham as the country won 3 gold medals in Boxing along with a historic gold in the triple jump. India is now placed 5th in the medal tally with 17 golds, 13 silvers, and 19 bronze medals. However, despite the stupendous performance by Indian athletes in Birmingham, India is still going to fall well short of its tally from the last commonwealth games.
In the last edition of the games held in Gold Coast in Australia, India finished in 3rd place on the table with 26 golds, 20 silvers, and 20 bronze medals. With just one more day of competition left, even if India wins Golds through its remaining competitors in Badminton and Table Tennis, the haul from Birmingham will be quite a few medals short than the one from Gold Coast.
One of the major reasons for the shortfall is the absence of shooting as an event from the Birmingham games. Shooting has always been one of India’s best events at these sporting competitions and it doesn’t feature in this edition of the commonwealth games.
During the last edition, India won as many as 7 gold medals in shooting, along with 4 silvers and 5 bronze medals. Nearly 25% of the medals India won in Australia came only from this one discipline. In fact, prior to the Birmingham games, India had won more than 1/3rd of its gold medals at the commonwealth games in this one discipline alone. So the absence of shooting from this edition has drastically reduced Indian medal prospects.
Why was shooting excluded from the commonwealth games
Shoting was part of the commonwealth games since the 1974 edition held in Christchurch, New Zealand except the 1986 edition. However, it was excluded from the Birmingham games due to ‘logistical reasons’, which basically means that there was no proper venue to conduct the event at the games.
Shooting is not part of the mandatory list of sports for the commonwealth games, and it comes down to the host and the Commonwealth Games Federation to decide whether they want to include it or not.
Indian Olympic Association even threatened to boycott the event in July 2019 in protest following shooting’s commission but following a visit by the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) president Louise Martin and CEO David Grevemberg in November that year, it withdrew its warning during the annual general body meeting in December.
CGF had even decided that commonwealth archery and shooting competitions will be held in Chandigarh in January 2022, and medals from there will be added to every country’s tally after the games in Birmingham. However, due to cornavirus restrictions, the games couldn’t be held in Chandigarh and the shooters were left disappointed.
