SHARJAH, 13th October, 2026 (WAM) -- The UAE Shooting Federation has concluded the UAE Open 10-metre air rifle and air pistol championship, hosted by Sharjah Club from 9th to 11th October 2026. It was the second of eight rounds in the 2026-2027 domestic season.
The championship recorded 280 entries across its junior and beginner events, with beginners accounting for 257 of them. In the beginner categories, 153 girls and 30 boys entered the air rifle, while 52 girls and 22 boys entered the air pistol. Shooters represented schools, clubs, academies and other sporting bodies.
The second round added a new dimension to the season’s aims by widening access for shooters at the earliest stages and offering different levels of competition within a single programme. This gives technical staff more room to identify promising talent and follow their progress in later rounds.
Saturday’s competition was devoted to the junior categories. In the junior girls’ air rifle, Fatima Obaid Al Suwaidi won with 413.5 points, ahead of Malak Ali Al Bashar on 399 and Khawla Badr Al Raeesi on 394.9. Layla Basim Al Naqbi took the junior girls’ air pistol title with 349 points, followed by Sara Abdullah Al Balushi on 346 and Dana Salem Al Ali on 338.
In the junior boys’ air pistol, Mohammed Al Hassan Jaafar finished first with 337 points, with Mohammed Mustafa Al Hammadi second on 325. Abdulrazzaq Al Shardoub topped the junior boys’ air rifle.
The championship closed on Sunday with the beginner categories. Alia Abdullah Al Shamsi won the girls’ air rifle with 102.8 points, just 0.2 of a point ahead of Reem Gharib Al Katbi on 102.6, while Mira Mahmoud Al Ali was third on 101.4. In the girls’ air pistol, Fatima Aref Mohammed led with 91 points, followed by Mira Mahmoud Al Ali on 85 and Maitha Jassim on 83.
Among the boys, Asad Ali Yassin won the air rifle with 103.3 points, ahead of Fazza Mohammed Yassin on 97.4 and Shuliwih Salem Hazza on 96.1. In the air pistol, Rayan Mohammed Kusaiba topped the standings with 93 points, followed by Mousa Tariq Ahmed on 90 and Fazza Mohammed Yassin on 89.
A number of shooters competed on behalf of their schools, alongside those from clubs, academies and other sporting bodies. This brought the school environment directly into the competition. It widens access to shooters at the early stages and lets schools take part in spotting promising talent and supporting their continued involvement in the sport.
Mohammed Suhail Al Neyadi, President of the UAE Shooting Federation, said the presence of shooters from schools, clubs and academies gives the series a value beyond competition itself, by widening access to talent and linking it to a path that can be tracked and developed.
He said, “Having shooters come from schools alongside clubs and academies opens a wider circle for us to discover new talent, but discovery is not the end of the task for us. What matters most is what happens after a shooter emerges: how they are followed, what they need technically, and how we give them the right opportunity to move to the next stage.”
He added, “What we want is for the school or academy not to remain merely a point of participation, but to be one of the gateways from which a shooter’s path can begin. Having eight rounds across the season gives us the chance to build our monitoring on more than one result and more than one experience, and to make technical decisions based on consistency and progress, not on a shooter’s performance on a single day.”
With the second round complete, the series is building a broader base of results and participation to draw on in later rounds. The process runs from giving shooters a place to compete at the start, through spotting those who keep attending and improving, to steering the most promising towards more specialised levels. The federation says this turns the championships from isolated fixtures into linked stages of a pathway, aimed at broadening the base of Emirati shooting and creating new feeders for the sport and the national teams.