KUWAIT: The thirteenth Asian Shooting Championship will be opened today, at Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Olympic Shooting Complex. The championship includes shotgun, rifle and pistol competitions. The Kuwait Shooting Sports Club prepared a fitting ceremony for this important championship which takes the winners to the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympics, as 33 countries are competing with 1200 shooters.

The technical meeting will be held at 11:00 am then official training will follow in the men’s double trap, 10m Air rifle for women, as well as 25m, 50m pistol for both genders. International Referee, Hamad Al- Ruwaisan, who heads the shotgun referees committee in Kuwait, said the committee prepared well for the Asian Championship. He said that all participating referees rejected the decisions to exclude the results of the tournament from the qualifying for the Olympic quotas. He said such practices by the international Olympic Committee reflects the conspiracy against Kuwait Shooting, and work on weakening it in Kuwait. He said that the committee received requests from Asian and Gulf referees who wanted to participate in refereeing and have already arrived in Kuwait from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Thailand, Singapore, Korea, Kazakhstan and Malaysia.

Meanwhile, Air Pistol and Rifle head referee Abdallah Barakat said, as competition is expected to be fierce. The referees prepared very well for this event, through camps and refresher courses. He also rejected the IOC and ISSF decisions to exclude the Olympic qualifying quotas from this tournament, adding that such act should be faced through legal channels.

By Abdullatif Sharaa