Saturday, July 5, 2008

Featuring the Shooting team

Before I posted this, I researched this :-) There is no way I could honestly say Major Rathore, the silver medalist in double trap shooting from 2004 Olympics and possibly Ronjan Sodhi, gold medalist in the world cup look promising for a medal. And the reason is that I had no clue what double trap meant.

Thanks to wiki and google, I now know the answer and and just fyi, apparently 2 targets are released simulantenously in different directions at different speeds from traps and the shooter has to hit them. The scores in different rounds are tallied. That lead to my next worry about the targets, whether any "live" thing was used, but it looks like they use clay pigeons. However these don't resemble pigeons, but they look like discs - so I am still wondering about the need to call them "clay pigeons".

Anyway it looks like India shooting team does well in other categories as well (no I don't understand the categories or the ammunition). As an added twist, Ronjan Sodhi is scrambling for a wild card pass despite winning the world cup gold.

Chance of a medal?

4 comments:

Anil Singh said...

They are called clay pigeons as, hunters are usually fond of shooting pigeons and other small birds, as it required good shooting abilities(it is also safe,than killing a ferocious beast).
They are made disc shaped as discs have the best shape to be air bound.

RS said...

@ bisht - I understand that in the hunting context. My only question why not call them "clay discs" and state reality :-)

Anil Singh said...

@rs, Which hunter will want to shoot clay discs? These shooters are the modern variants of the hunting tradition from time immemorial. So to add sheen to the sport, the targets are called pigeons and not discs.
Clay because, PETA people can stage a protest otherwise :-)

RS said...

ok, as long as they continue to be made of clay, I won't quibble about the names.