A record 13,522 shooters are set to participate in the 67th National Shooting Championship Competition (NSCC), starting here on Thursday with the shotgun events.

While the shotgun (December 11, 2024-January 19, 2025) and pistol (December 13, 2024-January 5, 2025) competitions will be held at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range here, Bhopal’s MP State Shooting Academy ranges will hold the rifle nationals from December 15 to 31.

The official pre-event training for skeet shooters belonging to Group 2 and Group 3 will be held on Wednesday, with the qualification rounds beginning on Thursday.

Group 1 shooters take to the ranges from December 21. Both defending champions Anant Jeet Singh Naruka, in men’s skeet, and Ganemat Sekhon, in the women’s skeet, will compete.

A total of 837 shotgun shooters across skeet, trap and double trap events will be competing in five classifications which include master, senior master and super master, besides the senior and junior.

Rifle competition has seen the maximum entries with 7013 participants across classifications while the pistol nationals will have 5672 competitors vying for the honours.

A total of 40 teams will be represented at the nationals. These include almost all states and union territories as well as those representing the armed forces of the country and public institutions like the ONGC and the Railways.

“All top shooters of the country will be participating in the nationals, whose scores will be counted when the Indian team for the 2025 international season is declared,” the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) said in a release.