Are the Armed Forces teams looking to skip the Shooting Nationals?
Defending champions Sri Lanka Army and the remaining two armed units — Sri Lanka Air Force and Sri Lanka Navy — are likely to become notable absentees at the upcoming NSSF National Shooting Championship 2017 which begins next weekend. A fleet of club and school teams are expected to vie for the championship this year as the competitions are set to be held from November 18 to 25 at the Naval Shooting Range in Welisara.
Competitions will be held under Rifle and Pistol categories for Junior, Youth and Open in men’s and women’s segments. The organisers, National Shooting Sports Federation of Sri Lanka (NSSF) are receiving entries continuously but so far the teams from Army, Air Force and Navy are pending confirmation of their participation.
The most possible reason for these three teams’ unavailability is the lack of ammunition, according to reliable information. The NSSF President, Shirantha Peiris, confirmed that the three armed forces teams are yet to certify their appearance at the most important domestic shooting event to be held in Sri Lanka annually.
“We expect the NSSF Nationals to be an annual important event for all shooters, for many reasons. But sadly we are yet to hear anything positive from the three armed forces up to now. It’s a strange and surprising excuse, but I too heard that they, in particularly Sri Lanka Army have run short of ammunition. We expect them to take part, as they are the defending champions and for the number of shooters they come in with for the Nationals,” Peiris explained.
It is heard that the NSSF even conducted a Committee Meeting last Tuesday to finalise the pending issues of the upcoming National Shooting Championship 2017, but the response from the three armed forces have been negative. Even under the present circumstances the NSSF expects over 100 high profile shooters from clubs and schools to take part at the National Shooting Championship 2017.