The present administration of the National Shooting Sport Federation (NSSF) of Sri Lanka will go down in history for making the impossible occur, at a time when the sport is battered with global health restrictions and infrastructural setbacks domestically.
With the dawn of 2021, the NSSF comes back to action with many initiatives, with the introduction of electronic target facility taking the fore. This facility too, has been setup at a provisional facility personally owned by the President of NSSF, Shirantha Peries near Kohuwala.
“We have been craving for a permanent national shooting range since 2015, but so far nothing has materialized in favour of the sport. There were requests made to several Sports Ministers who were in and out of office during this period, but the NSSF had to finally make a crucial decision to setup this temporary shooting range in early 2019, and now the electronic targets are placed here for the use of national shooters,” Pradeep Edirisinghe, the General Secretary of NSSF stated.
The introduction of electronic targets has several objectives. It will come handy to shooters of the national squad to train prior to any important international meet, which have been not held globally since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
More importantly, the introduction of electronic targets will facilitate the upcoming inaugural Asian Online Shooting Championship 2021, which will be held on January 29 and 30. Currently members of the national shooting squad are engaged in a qualifier trial meet in the 10m Air Rifle and 10m Air Pistol individual events for Men and Women.
“The trials are a good lead up to the NSSF as this is the first time Sri Lanka is taking part in an Online Asian competition. Unlike at our local competitions where the whole process is done manually, the outcome at electronic targets happens in real time. We can fully rely on the accuracy of the process, as during the competitions the Asian Shooting Federation will monitor the whole course from Kuwait,” Edirisinghe explained.
According to the guidelines issued by the Kuwait Shooting Federation, the organizers of the competition, three participants per discipline from each country will be given the opportunity to compete. In Air Rifle and Air Pistol for both Men and Women, three shooters each must qualify based on the minimum qualifying standards set by the organizers.
“In addition, skeet and trap events will take place during the same period, but Sri Lanka will be able to take part only in the skeet because we are having the NSSF Skeet Open this weekend and the top three shooters will automatically qualify for that. Air Rifle and Air Pistol shooters from all countries must qualify,” said Edirisinghe.
The Asian Online competition will commonly start at 10.00am local time in each country at their respective shooting ranges and updates will be monitored in real time by the organizers based in Kuwait. The respective countries taking part must provide facilities to shooters under strict health guidelines, and ISSF qualified independent judges in each country will officiate the matches, before submitting the approved report with results to Kuwait.
“We will begin shooting at these competitions starting from 10.00am as instructed at this temporary facility in Kohuwala and at the Clay Target Shooting Club of Colombo’s shotgun range facility in Payagala. We, as the NSSF must take the responsibility for an honest report and these results are totally based on mutual understanding,” he further explained.
The NSSF intends to continue this exercise during the coming months as international meets are yet to resume since early 2020, due to the pandemic and global travel restrictions. However, the introduction of electronic targets to Sri Lanka is a welcome sign for NSSF, as it will have the ability to provide its shooters a facility they could only experience overseas.
“The NSSF is indebted to our current President, for letting the federation utilize his personal property and facilities without any charges. Even this temporary range and the electronic shooting targets would not be a reality if not for his commitment to shooting sports. We can only sincerely hope that our local shooters would take the maximum out of it to help Sri Lanka win medals internationally,” Edirisinghe outlined.
 of Sri Lanka will go down in history for making the impossible occur, at a time when the sport is battered with global health restrictions and infrastructural setbacks domestically. ){kind=link}