Paris: India’s quest to end two successive Olympic failures at the shooting ranges will commence on Saturday when the competition kicks off at Chateauroux with the initial spotlight firmly on a quartet who have a promised a plenty in recent years.
A lot has been spoken and written about Indian shooters firing blanks at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 (the Games were held in 2021 owing to Covid-19 pandemic) and the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) ended up doing a course correction that has seen the sport touch some amazing heights in the build-up to Paris 2024.
Apart from raking in the moolah at the Asian Games in Hangzhou last year where they won a record seven gold, nine silver and six bronze medals, the shooters kept locking in Paris quotas at the rate of knots before eventually securing 21 berths, next only to powerhouse China.
With Olympic quota places earned by the country and not by the individual in shooting, the fight to secure a spot in the Indian team was so intense that NRAI had to conduct trials over four stages before announcing a squad based purely on form that didn’t sit well with some like former world champion Rudrankksh Patil, a quota winner, and Tokyo Olympian Divyansh Singh Panwar. The move to conduct trials, however, got a thumps-up from none other than Beijing Olympic gold medallist Abhinav Bindra.
Now, armed with confidence, the shooters, many of whom are competing in their maiden Olympics and don’t carry the baggage of previous disappointments, will be hoping to scale the podium in Chateauroux, a quaint city around 280 kilometres from the hustle and bustle of Paris, and set the ball rolling for Team India aspiring to touch double digits in medals tally.
First up will be the quartet of Ramita, Elavenil Valarivan, Arjun Babuta and Sandeep Singh, who will be in action in the 10m air rifle event and a medal is up for grabs — the mixed team. Arjun and Ramita are one team with Sandeep and Valarivan being the other. The combined scores of a team will be considered and they have to finish inside the top four to qualify for the medal rounds — bronze and gold medal matches.
Of the four, 28-year-old Sandeep will be the one carrying immense pressure considering his stunning last-minute inclusion in the team. Unlike many others in the squad who boast of an impressive resume, Sandeep doesn’t have any ISSF medal but the Armyman upstaged all of them in trials, shooting 634.4, 632.6, 631.6 and 628.3. Such were his scores in the trials, NRAI were forced to pick him despite his lack of pedigree.
Sandeep, bizarrely, has great scores in qualifying rounds of competitions but poor ones in finals. So the naib subedar - who even served in the Siachen Glacier, the world’s highest battlefield, and served a doping suspension - will have a lot to prove. What better stage than the Olympics to do it.
Sandeep’s partner Valarivan is amongst the four in the current team who has a taste of the Olympics. A talented shooter whose mentor is none other than current Chef de Mission Gagan Narang, Valarivan has done well in World Cup and Asian Championships but struggled in competitions like Asian Games or Olympics. The ever-smiling 24-year-old, however, is more composed now and she’ll be hoping to write a new script this time.
Arjun matched the men’s 10m air rifle world record scores during the trials and the 25-year-old, who was troubled by a bulged and displaced disc on his lower back, will be hoping to replicate the same. Ramita is a buzzing and fast-rising 20-year-old and she’ll be hoping to make a solid debut statement.
The likes of Manu Bhaker, Sift Kaur Samra, Aishwary Tomar and Rhythm Sangwan, all tipped to do well, will then take the stage over the next week.