Even by India's remarkable shooting prowess, the talent in the women's 10m air rifle category is bordering on absurd. There are three inside the world's top seven in terms of rankings: Elavenil Valarivan (World No 1), Anjum Moudgill (No 4) and Apurvi Chandela (No 7). To put it in perspective, only one other nation
— Germany — has more than one shooter inside the top 10 (2). In fact, most predictions indicated that India would get at least one Olympic medal from this event. The competition among the three is stiff and only two of them can go to Tokyo.
The 21-year-old Elavenil, who has opted to skip the national camp which began on Wednesday, touched upon the competition for places, during an interaction with this daily. "The women's team is definitely competitive right now," she says.
"I have to compete with not only Anjum and Apurvi but also Shreya (Agarwal) to maintain my ranking. Additionally, junior shooters are doing well. I can vouch that all that competition is keeping us on our toes and we are developing further. So we need to keep the positive approach and keep fighting."
With most ranges shuttered around the world to halt the spread of the virus, shooters have found it tough to practice. But Elavenil, originally from Tamil Nadu, got special dispensation from the Ahmedabad District Rifle Association. "I have a shooting range just 500 metres away from my place... I managed to get permission from the district association to access the range individually. The range is quite compatible, I practise on an SIUS electronic target which was arranged by the Gagan Narang Sports Promotion Foundation and Sanskardham School."
The 2019 World Cup gold medallist (in Rio de Janeiro) also kept herself occupied by engaging in a variety of exercises aimed at maintaining her levels so that there isn't a drop off. "It's a big worry if a shooter is unable to access the range, but there are a few training methods which can be followed to keep up with the shooter-range gap... exercises such as core body workout, wall holding training methods, scatt practice, dry practice etc. These methods help the shooter create a satisfied shooting training programme at home. I did not stop my physical training. I always had my personal trainer who used to look after my sessions and follows ups through video calls."
In the next month or so, Elavenil may resume training with Narang. In fact, she had hoped to train with the 2012 Olympic medallist at his academy in Hyderabad before the floods (she had posted this on Twitter). But she hopes she can train with Narang soon enough. "Training with Gagan sir has always been fruitful,"
she says. "Somewhere at the back of my mind, I know he is observing my game, so I give my 100% and that's how I keep improving day by day. He has always been supportive and his guidance is very useful to me. He has his own unique way of training and monitoring, and the intense sessions with him shows in my
performance. I will look forward to training with him in near future, as currently our sessions are limited to online."
She is pretty good at that aspect of her game too, shooting targets in an online world. On Sunday, she claimed gold in the Sheikh Russel International air rifle championship, an online meet hosted by the Bangladesh Shooting Federation. The big challenge for her will be to get back to her optimum best before the Olympics next year.