KARACHI: The National Rifle Association of Pakistan (NRAP) on Friday named a nine-member squad for the XXI Commonwealth Games being staged in Gold Coast (Australia) in April, a spokesman of the association announced here.

The team was named by head of the selection committee, Javed Lodhi, containing seven shooters including two females and two officials. It comprises Usman Chand (Skeet) Ghufran Adil (10M Air Rifle) Aamer Iqbal (Trap & Double Trap), Mohammad Farrukh Nadeem (Trap & Double Trap), and Mohammad Khalil Akhtar (25 M Rapid fire Pistol), Minhal Sohail (10 M Air Rifle) and Mehwish Farhan (10M Air Pistol). The officials are Lt. Col Junaid Waqas Iqbal (manager) and Razi Ahmed (coach). The NRAP also named reserve shooters which comprised Khalilullah (10 M Air Pistol & 50 M Pistol) and Aqsa Ghufran (10 M Air Rifle).

The team was named after extensive trials held at the Naval International Shooting Range. Other members of the selection committee included retired Commodore Ghazanfar Abbas and Razi Ahmed Khan.

Razi, who is also coach of the team, said Pakistan has bright chances to secure medal in Skeet, Trap and Double because during the trials they achieved international standard scores.

Most of the events of the CW sports extravaganza will be staged at Gold Coast but the shooting competition will be held in Melbourne.

Razi further said that a short training camp will be held from March 22.

“The Pakistan team will leave for Melbourne in the first week of April,” he said.

Published in Dawn, February 17th, 2018