JAKARTA: What’s one of the worst nightmares for a school kid? When the principal decides to drop in for a house visit to “discuss” his/her performance with parents. Ritu Dewan, though, did not knock on the door of Shardul Vihan’s house to talk to his parents about his performance in school. She dropped by to follow the 15-year-old’s performance in the double trap final in Palembang. One hour later, she left with a smile on her face.
Shooting has given India some of its most incredible plot-lines — good and bad — at this Asian Games, and Thursday stuck to script. After Saurabh Chaudhary, all of 16 years, shot down gold in the 10m air pistol discipline a couple of days ago, it was Vihan’s turn to hog the limelight. In the process, he won silver to become one of the country’s youngest-ever medal-winners in any discipline in the Games’ history.
The final itself was a thrill-a-second affair, one that went down to the wire. Competing with Vihan was Hyunwoo Shin, who had made his debut for South Korea two years before the Indian was born.
Shin had conceded an early advantage by dropping two shots in the first two series. In response, Vihan, who looked like he belonged on this stage, shot with confidence. He took down the clay birds with ease and returned a spotless first sequence before a first black mark at the end of the second. Even then he was leading. The poise Vihan was showing was unbelievable.
Shooters have 12 seconds to shoot down the two flying birds, but the teenager from Meerut was taking them down in what seemed like less than a second, resembling a freak who wouldn’t have been out of place at a Cirque du Soleil show.
Shooters aged 33, 28, 37 and 42 were eliminated, but the boy-wonder kept going like a machine. Before the beginning of the final two sequences to decide the gold medal, the Korean had inched ahead thanks to a clean record in the fifth sequence, a series where Vihan dropped three birds. This gap ultimately proved to be the difference at the end. How did Vihan prepare for the biggest day of his life? Like most kids his age do: play a shooting-based video game. While they indulge in it for recreation, he wanted to further polish his skills. “Mansher sir (coach Mansher Singh) just asked me to be myself and shoot without fear,” he said afterwards.
The way Vihan prepares to take down his target is very unique. The Class X kid has an elaborate routine. He takes his cartridge out, and places it in front of him before putting it back in his jacket’s pocket. Personal coach Anwer Sultan explained the idea behind that method. “He does that to know the best position of where to point his barrel. It’s a method that I’d taught him when he first came to me at the age of 12,” Sultan tells Express. Training under Sultan has its obvious advantages; he is a former Asiad medallist. But it also has one major disadvantage: being on the road for more than four hours a day whenever there is practice.
“Five days a week, he wakes up at 5.00 am to come to Karni Singh from Meerut. He trains from 10.00 am to beyond 2.00 pm, before going back to Meerut,” explains Sultan.
The impressive thing about Vihan is that this feat wasn’t unexpected, for both Mansher and Sultan. “I was not expecting gold, but I knew he already had it in him to win a medal,” says Sultan. As Vihan will wake up on Friday, with a silver medal by his bedside table, Dayawati Modi Academy will rise in unison after finishing its regular morning assembly to toast its student’s success. His parents will be in attendance, as Ritu had invited them to a “grand one” before leaving.
swaroop@newindianexpress.com