General Assembly of the Commonwealth Shooting Federation (CSF) in its meeting in Glasgow on 28 July 2014 agreed to reinstate shooting pair events in the 2018 Commonwealth Games (CWG) to be held in Australia. The CSF agreement came after India pushed for reinstatement of the shooting pair events.
Apart from this, Baljit Singh Sethi, the National Rifles Association Advisor was elected unopposed as Vice President of the CSF at the General Assembly meeting in Glasgow. The General Assembly has also decided to bring back two pistol events, which will increase the number of pistol matches for men to five instead of three. The two events that will be brought back are:
- Centre Fire Pistol
- Standard Pistol
Background
The pair events of shooting were removed from the programme of the Commonwealth Games in 2014, which led to a loss to India. Its removal from the Glasgow edition has brought down the number of medals in Commonwealth Games. In the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, Indian shooters won 30 medals (14 gold, 11 silver and five bronze) out of total 101 medals (38 gold, 27 silver and 36 bronze) won by India. This helped India complete the game at second spot. Whereas, in the pair events of shooting, India in 2010 won eight gold, five silver and three bronze medals from 20 events which was dropped at Glasgow Games.