Indian shooters have certainly come a long way. And for this, they need to thank some of the pioneering Indian shooters who made a mark on the international stage several decades ago.
The late Karni Singh, ace shooter and former Member of Parliament was one of them. Karni won arguably, India’s first international shooting medal, a silver in the 38thWorld Shooting Championships in Cairo way back in 1962. Karni followed this up with two golds in the Asian Shooting championships in Tokyo ( 1967) and Seoul ( 1971) and a silver medal at the Asian Games in Teheran in 1974. This feat was emulated by the likes of Sharad Chauhan who won a silver in the 1982 New Delhi Asian Games and Ashok Pandit who won the 1984 Commonwealth Games gold medal.
The standards set by these pioneers were taken to another level altogether by women shooters like Anjali Bhagwat and Suma Shirur in the early 2000s.
Anjali was crowned World number one in the 10 metres air rifle event in 2002 and followed it up with a gold in the World Cup Final in Milan in 2003. But her biggest achievement, was getting crowned the ‘Champion of Champions’ in the ISSF World championships beating back a mixed field of the best men and women shooters in the air rifle event held at Munich in 2002. Anjali won a mind-boggling 12 gold and four silver medals in the Commonwealth Games alone.
Likewise, Suma Shirur, another Mumbai based shooter is a joint world record holder in the 10 metre air rifle event having scored the maximum 400 points in the 2004 Asian Shooting Championships in Kuala Lumpur. Suma also won a gold and a silver medal at the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games and a silver medal at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan.
Mumbai based Raj Khalid, Maharashtra state team shooter and avid researcher of the sport is of the firm opinion that it was the remarkable achievements of shooters like Anjali and Suma that made Indian shooters believe that they could also be world beaters. “Anjali and Suma paved the way for so many shooters to follow,” Khalid said.
Sure enough, following Anjali’s success, as many as eight Indian shooters have been crowned World number one so far. Anjali ( 2002), Rajyavardhan Rathore
(2004), Gagan Narang (2006), Manavjit Sandhu (2006), Ronjan Sodhi (2011), Heena Sidhu (2014), Jitu Rai (2016) and Ankur Mittal (2017).
Khalid also attributes the good health of Indian shooting to the welcome trend of former Indian shooting champions turning to active coaching. “Suma Shirur, Jaspal Rana, Ronak Pandit are some names that come to mind easily. This augurs well for the sport, because of the sheer confidence that is passed on from the older generation to the younger players,” Khalid said.
Speaking to this columnist, Suma Shirur, presently appointed the high performance rifle coach of the Indian Junior shooting team, complimented the National Rifle Association of India’s (NRAI) vision in promoting the sport in the country. “The NRAI has always involved former shooters in the planning process and paid heed to our suggestions. They are keen to use our expertise for the benefit of younger players,” Suma said.
Suma also lauded the NRAI’s junior shooters’ training programme. “Shooters are starting off very young these days. Importantly, the young shooters of today have developed a winning mind set. They want to win international tournaments. I feel this is the result of efforts put in by an entire generation of shooters.” Suma said.
Suma is right. The recent ISSF World Cup result is proof enough. Indian medallists, Shahzar Rizvi ( gold), Manu Bhaker (two golds), Akhil Sheoran ( gold), Om Prakash Mitharval ( gold), Anjum Moudgill ( silver), Deepak Kumar and Mehuli Ghosh ( both bronze) are all between the ages of 16-23. Indian shooting’s future is indeed very bright!
