RI to host Asia shooting tourney
RI to host Asia shooting tourney
JAKARTA (JP): Twenty countries have confirmed their participation in the 8th Asian Shooting Championships to be held here and in Bogor in October.
"We have invited all the 38 member countries of the Asian Shooting Confederation. Our neighbors Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea are also invited," Soetiyoso, a top official of the Indonesian Shooting Association, said yesterday.
He hopes that at least 25 countries will respond positively to the invitation to the Oct. 1 to Oct. 9 championships. "So far 20 countries have confirmed their registration," he added.
China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are among the countries which have signed up.
The Indonesian Shooting Association will need Rp 980 million (US$439,719) to finance the championships. It has secured Rp 500 million from donations and is attempting to cover the rest through sponsorship.
The championships serve as a qualification round for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games and offer the participating countries an opportunity to earn as many as possible minimal qualification scores for each event in order to expand their potential quotas for a place at the Olympics.
The championships will feature 12 men's events and seven women's competitions. The men's events include 50m free rifle, 50m free rifle prone, 10m air rifle, 50m free pistol, 25m rapid fire pistol, 25m center fire pistol, 25m standard pistol, 10m air pistol, trap, skeet, double trap and 10m running target.
The women's events are 50m standard rifle, 50m standard rifle prone, 10m air rifle, 25m sport pistol, double trap and 10m running target.
As host, Indonesia will compete in all events.
The championships will be held at two shooting ranges.
The Senayan shooting range will be the site of indoor events and the Army's shooting range in Cilodong, Bogor, will be used for the skeet, trap and double trap events.
The Senayan shooting range is the only venue in the world which is strategically situated inside a city, but most of its shooting equipment is outdated and the indoor range is poorly ventilated. And since part of the site was sold for an apartment project in 1991, the shrunken range is no longer suitable for certain shooting events. Hence, the Army's Cilodong range has to be used as well.
A team from the World Shooting Body is scheduled to reinspect the two shooting ranges by the end of June for a final decision on their eligibility.
Soetiyoso said Indonesia is not yet counted among the world's top shooting countries. Indonesian female sharpshooters finished second in the double trap event contested as an exhibition at last year's Hiroshima Asian Games. In the last Asian championships in Beijing in 1991, in which all the 38 Asian Shooting Confederation member countries took part, Indonesia finished 12th. (arf)