No shooting event at the 2022 Commonwealth Games

The Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF), National Rifle Association of India (NRAI), as well a Union sports minister and Olympic silver medalist Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, have all been sweating hard to include shooting as a sport in the Commonwealth Games. However, it doesn’t seem to happen in the upcoming 2022 edition that is held in Birmingham, after Grevemberg issued a statement recently where he clarified it by stating that the sport of shooting was merely ‘optional’.

“Shooting will not feature at the 2022 CWG and the CGF has awarded the Games supporting these plans,” Grevemberg wrote in a letter to the Commonwealth Games Association.

Grevemberg stressed that the decision to exclude the sport was not his alone and the “entire commonwealth of nations” stood by it. The Birmingham games’ organizing committee has chosen the sports of table tennis, judo, gymnastics, wrestling, cycling, diving and 3-v-3 basketball as the selected seven optional sports to feature as part of the 2022 games.

“Birmingham is a diverse and dynamic city that has proposed an inspiring and inclusive event for 2022, and in record time. We know that they considered all optional sports carefully, but a final decision was reached,” added Grevemberg in his letter.

Shooting has been a sport in which India have always enjoyed success, with the likes of sports minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Abhinav Bindra, and Gagan Narang amongst others claiming medals. Grevemberg was not oblivious of it and understood the disappointment. He even sympathized with India, without specifying the country’s name, by highlighting in the letter, “a particular country has enjoyed medal success in this sport historically”.