CHENNAI: Saturday was a monumental day for Mehuli Ghosh. The rifle shooter defined consistency with her shooting before fetching a bronze medal at the ongoing ISSF World Championships in Baku. More importantly, her effort helped India secure the all-important Olympic quota. That takes India's quota to four.
Right from the onset, the shooter from Kolkata was on point. Taking part in the women's 10m air rifle qualification, she started with an impressive score of 10.8. And that was a welcome hit as she was one of the second batch of shooters (a total of 140 shooters) and had scoreboard pressure on her. That 10.8 set the tone as she maintained her high scores in the remaining 59 shots.
With all her 60 shots over 10s, she was certainly in the zone. She even had a perfect score of 10.9 (thrice) and went on to top the qualification stage with a high score of 634.5. For context, that score is just shy of the existing qualification world record score of 635.3, which was recorded by USA's Alison Marie Weisz in 2022.
"I'm very happy with the bronze medal and also with the Olympic quota. I thank everyone including SAI, NRAI, TOPS for supporting me and I hope I can make all of you proud in the future as well and bring more medals for the country," Mehuli, who shot 229.8 in the final to finish behind Chinese duo of Han Jiayu (251.4) and Wang Zhilin (250.2), said.
The margins were certainly very slim as the lead changed hands before the Chinese shooters took over. Mehuli, however, retained her calm to be in contention until the end.
"I was very excited and nervous for the final. In fact, I can still feel the nerves. There was very little difference between each one of us. It was very exciting and I am happy with the result," she added.
This is obviously a massive lift for Mehuli, who had missed out on the Tokyo Olympics due to competition within the team. Her talent was visible but she was not just able to thrive. This effort couldn't have come at a better time. Former national rifle coach Joydeep Karmakar, who has also had a solid hand in Mehuli's rise to the international stage, is not surprised.
"She was outstanding. I was always convinced that she had that edge, she has that champion mentality. In bigger competitions, she tends to perform at a higher level. She is back on track," Joydeep, who's currently working at MP Shooting Academy, told this daily.
India will be hopeful that she can reproduce this level of consistency in big events. Past setbacks and experiences would have definitely bolstered her mind.
"She had a few below-par scores (build-up to Olympics) and that had haunted her, not mentally but technically. However, she did regain form before the Olympics but it was too little, too late. She was naturally sad, but things seem to be bright now," Joydeep said.
Tilottama Sen, the other Indian in the final, also showed that she has a bright future as she was just edged by Mehuli in her final shot. The trio of Mehuli, Tilottama and Ramita also secured a team gold medal.
While the trio had a happy outing, the men, including Olympians Divyansh Singh Panwar and Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, in the rifle section put up a subdued show and were well off the mark.
The skeet shooters also failed to get part of the qualification hurdle.