CHENNAI: Indian shooters have been raising the bar at the ongoing ISSF World Championship in Cairo, Egypt. Elavenil Valarivan, Anish Bhanwala, Samrat Rana and Varun Tomar took massive strides in their respective events to lift the country in the last few days.
Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, who competes in men's 50m rifle 3 positions, was the latest to join the bandwagon. And he did so in an emphatic fashion. Just like the four shooters before him, Aishwary gunned down his maiden senior individual medal (silver) at the marquee event on Tuesday.
Moreover, the double Olympian equalled the qualification world record with an eye-catching 597 before narrowly missing out on the prized gold medal.
After a slow start, Aishwary had a slender (0.1) advantage over Paris Olympics champion Liu Yukun of China heading into the 45th and last shot of the eight-man final. It was Lui's record that Aishwary had matched during the qualification phase and now the Indian had the opportunity to finish above him. The neutrals could not have hoped for a better script as the last shot would eventually decide the world champion. Liu was the first to pull the trigger and the score read 10.1. Not a disastrous score given the circumstances but not great either. Liu's body language suggested he was far from happy with that finish. Aishwary needed to match his score or higher. The Indian bided a few seconds before finally pulling the trigger. However, all he could manage was a 9.8.
Aishwary was visibly downcast while Liu could breathe a sigh of relief before acknowledging the crowd by raising his hand. Romain Aufrere of France was the third shooter on the podium.
As the dust settles, Aishwary is bound to take plenty of positives with his record-breaking effort. The 24-year-old from Madhya Pradesh has been a serial medal winner from the country over the years. Interestingly, the world record outcome is not Aishwary's personal best. During the National Games (NG) in Dehradun at the start of the year, he had shot an impressive 598, a tally that didn't count as an official World Record as the NG is not recognised for the same. "It was good (overall effort). In the qualification, the range situation was a little bad because of the wind but we still managed to shoot and I'm very happy with the world record. It was one of my best scores," Aishwary told ISSF channel during the post-match interview.
Niraj Kumar, the other Indian who also featured in the final, finished fifth. Niraj's relatively slow start during the kneeling and prone series, as compared to those above him, cost him.
It's no surprise that Aishwary's coach, Vaibhav Sharma, was stoked with the day's outcome. "Today's (Tuesday) performance is one of Aishwary's best according to me. Given the magnitude of the event, the way he performed in the qualification and the finals, I have never seen that. Whatever competition he had today, I have high hopes that he'll be a strong contender for gold during the LA Games," Vaibhav, who has been imparting lessons to Aishwary since 2015, told The New Indian Express.
Despite his high ceiling, he had fallen short of his goals at the Olympics. With the standard of shooting sky-high, Vaibhav said that his ward had focussed on his standing (one of the integral part of his event).
"The 11th-place finish during the Paris Games was unfortunate. Before that, he had been doing well during that Olympic cycle. We returned, reflected and focussed on his standing (shots). His kneeling and prone was at a good level but we worked quite a bit on his standing. The 590-plus scores that we're witnessing is due to the continuous focus on getting a good combination score (kneeling, prone and standing) during training. We continued to set a high benchmark. Our long-term goal is the Olympics and we're targetting a minimum score of 596, 597 during the quadrennial event."
Apart from staying updated in regards to technique, the coach said that Aishwary had also increased his fitness level. "The 3P event is demanding. For every position, one has to work on their particular muscles, micro and macro. So all the muscles that will be in use, we have been improving those. We have different forms of exercises like balancing exercises. We have weekly cycles for different exercises. When do we need to push more (fitness) and when do we need to slow down. All these details are pre-planned and that has been our procedure."
Father hopes shooter can get a job soon
Veer Bahadur Singh, Aishwary's father, was unsurprisingly a proud man. Like most parents, he always longs for days like this. However, Veer, a farmer in Ratanpur village of Khargone district, hoped that his son could get a job at the MP Government soon. "He has already featured in two Olympics. This was the first time he qualified for the finals (senior Worlds) and won a silver. Given that he's now getting older, we hope that he can continue to do better and we're also hopeful that he'll get a job at the MP Government. This is our wish. The government had announced that (job) but he hasn't gotten it yet."
Silver for Esha & Samrat
The 10m air pistol mixed team pairing of Esha Singh and Samrat topped the qualification stage but finished with a silver in the final. The Indian duo lost 10-16 against the Chinese combination of Yao Qianxu and Hu Kai in the gold-medal match.