Kathmandu, November 28

Nepali shooters will have to use decades-old arms and ammunition in the 13th South Asian Games after National Sports Council failed to import new stock for the regional sporting extravaganza.

Nepal Shooting Association Secretary and former chief coach Deepak Khati said the lack of proper equipment would affect shooters’ performance. “Players were excited to give their best in a newly-built range but NSC’s inability to import arms on time has robbed shooters of that opportunity,” he added.

Shooters wearing thier old gears and aiming targets with old version of air rifle while practicing 10 meters air rifle at shooting range of International Sports Complex, Satdobato in Lalitpur on Thursday. Photo: Udipt Singh Chhetry/ THT

Khati said NSA had submitted the list of necessary equipment to NSC some eight months ago. “We had requested NSC to provide us with the equipment at least a month before the games as it takes at least 10-15 days for players to get used to the arms,” he added. “Now that the players will be using old equipment, some of which are from the 1999 SA Games, we are not sure how they will perform in the SA Games,” he added.

Nepal got modern shooting facility at the International Sports Complex in Lalitpur after the Chinese government reconstructed three well-equipped shooting ranges — 10m, 25m and 50m — at an estimated cost of Rs 200 million. But players do not have proper arms to perform at the new range. Khati said the association had to fully rely on the government to import arms and ammunition as it was a sensitive matter. “It’s not like buying other sports equipment. It takes a lot of paper work. Sadly, NSC did not take our concerns seriously,” he added.

Gold medallist in the 10m air rifle event at the eighth national games Sushmita Nepal, who has been

using the gun she received during the youth training programme in Kuwait two years ago, said their hopes of excelling in front of the home crowd had been dashed.

“Junior players use the gun which I have been using for the last two years. I was excited at the news that we would be getting modern equipment for the SA Games but that did not happen,” Sushmita told THT.

Sushmita said she had hoped to make it to the final. “I am scoring up to 616 points in training with this gun. I could have done better if I had got the chance to train with new equipment. Now making it to top eight seems really difficult,” she added.

Another shooter, Kalpana Pariyar, said they could not prove their calibre due to lack of proper equipment. “We had set ourselves a target to meet in the SA Games. But we cannot show what we are capable of simply because we do not have the right equipment,” Pariyar added.

“Still, we will try to give our best and improve on our scores with what is available,” she said.