Nagaland shooter Kilenkala qualify for national selection trials

Mokokchung, December 10 (MTNews): The Nagaland Rifle Association (NRA) on Saturday announced that one of its shooters, Kilenkala Temsukaba Longkumer, have qualified for the national selection trials.
Kilenkala Temsukaba Longkumer and M. Tiatemjen Jamir participated in the recently concluded 65th National Shooting Championship Competitions (NSCC) 2022 held at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, where the former scored 612.4 and the latter 601.3.

Given the excellent score, Kilenkala Temsukaba Longkumer qualified for the forthcoming national selection trials starting January 2023. It may be mentioned that the selection trials will determine entry into the Indian squad for international and Olympic competitions.

Both the shooters took up the sports recently joining Aries Rifle and Pistol Shooting Academy (ARAPSA) in 2021. ARAPSA, located at NST Colony, Dimapur, was designated as a “Khelo India Centre” by the Sports Authority of India/Department of Youth Resources and Sports on 1st May, 2021.

State Govt requested to create conducive atmosphere

“The state has enough shooting talents to even excel in international and Olympic events. However, this will happen only in a conducive atmosphere created by the state government,” NRA said.

“For instance, Ms. Tilottama Sen, a 14 year old girl from Dimapur, now studying in Bangalore, won Gold medal in the 15th Asian Airgun Championship held at Daegu, South Korea, 2022; Gold and Bronze medals at the ISSF World Championships held at Cairo, Egypt, 2022. Ms. Sen now represents the state of Karnataka,” NRA informed.

It went on to say that during the recently concluded 2nd North-East Olympic Games held at Shillong, Meghalaya, shooters from Nagaland could not represent the state as the NRA is yet to be affiliated to the Nagaland Olympic Association (NOA). “To put the loss in medal tally for the state in the NE Olympic Games in perspective, NRA shooters won 10 medals in the 9th North-East Zone Shooting Championship, 2022, held at Guwahati,” it said.

The NRA said that it had since 2015 approached the NOA for affiliation three times, the latest being this year. “The state government is requested to create a ‘conducive atmosphere’ as stated earlier for the progress of sports in the state,” the NRA remarked.

The NRA stated that it is the only sports organization from the state registered with the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI). “The NRAI also allows only one organization per state to represent state shooters. Therefore, any other organization not affiliated with the NRAI, though well-meaning, is not competent to send shooters for zonal or national level competitions,” NRA said.

“However, once registered with NRA, shooters are given opportunities to compete in NRAI sanctioned competitions, zonal, national and international,” NRA president Merang Jamir and secretary Vikuo Metha said in a press release.