In a unique gesture, India's only individual Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra today awarded high quality German made Walther Rifles to five young talented Indian shooters.
The promising young shooters who received the award are Arun Sharma (21) of Jammu & Kashmir, Prashant Tanwar (19) of Harayana, Nikhil B (16) of Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh's Satyam Chauhan (20) and Gajendra Rai (16).
These youngsters have been identified under the Abhinav Bindra and GoSports Foundation's Shooting Development Programme, which offers support to 30 India's top rifle and pistol shooters.
The Programme also offers shooting training and access to high-performance sports science expertise to the selected shooters through Development Workshops, in addition to monetary support and personalised mentorship by Olympians Bindra and Suma Shirur.
The shooters have been selected from a pool of more than 300 applicants. The selection process was overseen by Bindra himself, who headed the selection panel consisting of other top shooters and experts.
"Indian shooters are an extremely talented bunch, and they have been performing extremely well at all levels of competition. The five shooters we have chosen for equipment support have demonstrated great potential, and in spite of limited resources, are doing well at the national level," Bindra said.
"I would like to thank Walther Arms for extending their support and offering equipment to our young shooters. We hope that the high-quality and precision of these new weapons will propel them to greater heights, and provide them an impetus to become world class shooters," he added.
