LUCKNOW, July 29 -- In Uttar Pradesh there are over 10,000 registered shooters, including Asian Games gold medallist Saurabh Chaudhary of Meerut, and over 4,000 are still playing at the national and international levels, but they don't have even single shooting range of their own where they can train and aim for medals at the international level. The ongoing six-day 28th pre-Uttar Pradesh State Shooting Championship with a participation of over 2000 shooters in air, small bore and shotgun, is happening at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range, Tuglakabad in New Delhi under the auspices of the UP State Rifle Association instead of happening anywhere in Uttar Pradesh. "This is a problem we have been facing for the last many years as Uttar Pradesh doesn't have even a single shooting range where we can conduct events for our own shooters. Every time our shooters have to travel to Delhi on their own to participate in the state championship. So one can imagine how our shooters are training" UPSRA's treasurer and former national level shooter Vipul Singh said on Monday. "In fact, UPSRA is doing its best to help shooters grow in the right direction, but due to lack of a shooting range in the state, our shooters are bound to suffer and they don't get proper training facilities," Singh added. Undoubtedly, Uttar Pradesh boasts of several top shooters across various disciplines, including Akhil Sheoran, Abbas Ansari, Mohammed Asab, Varun Tomar, and Chain Singh. Notably, Varun Tomar recently won the men's 10m air pistol title at the 21st Kumar Surendra Singh Memorial Shooting Championship. While the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) releases domestic rankings for Group A shooters, individual state-level performances also highlight talented athletes like Ayan Sharma and Akshar Mishra from La Martiniere College. Besides, Saurabh Chaudhary and Meraj Ahmed Khan are the two biggest names as Chaudhary has been a 10m air pistol specialist and the youngest Indian to win an Asian Games gold medal in shooting, whereas Khan is a a prominent skeet shooter and the first Indian skeet shooter to qualify for the Olympics, representing India in Rio and Tokyo. He has won gold medals at the ISSF World Shooting Championships, Commonwealth Shooting Championships and Asian Shooting Championships. "Uttar Pradesh isn't short of talent in shooting and now the game has grown manifold since the success story of Uttar Pradesh shooters at the Asian Games and World Championships. Now, we have shooters from the eastern part of the state like Ghazipur, Jaunpur, Sultanpur, Varanasi and other adjoining districts," Singh said. "The number of kids is growing in shooting and many more youths are attracted towards the game now. I am sure if the government gives more facilities, we can have many more Saurabh Chaudhary in Uttar Pradesh. Once we have our own shooting range, we will get better results," he added. He, however, admitted that there are plenty of private shooting ranges in the state nowadays, but having a government's shooting range with all modern facilities will help Uttar Pradesh shooters grow further. "We have requested the Lucknow district administration to run the Nadarganj shooting range as soon as possible and recently our CM Sir has announced a big financial package for that range," Singh said. He also said that besides having the problem of no shooting range in Uttar Pradesh, the state's shooters are also facing many glitches in getting arms licences and ammunition. "If we have an easy system in getting arm licences and ammunition, we can have more international standard shooters," said Singh, adding, "Air pistols are very popular in Uttar Pradesh as pellets are cheap and it can be practised in the 10 metres and for that, you do not have to take a licence for firearms." After the pre-state event, all qualified shooters will participate in the state championship before playing in the pre-nationals and then nationals....