CHENNAI: Hangzhou, thanks to the picturesque West Lake (Xi Lake) that runs across the city, has inspired many poets. Legend has it that poets travelled to the place to get their creative juices flowing. In fact, the city has been governed by two poets, Bai Juyi and Su Dongpo.
Inside the 50m shooting range at the Fuyang Yinhu Sports Centre on Wednesday, Sift Kaur Samra composed haiku with a rifle in her hand. In time, shooters may well go on a pilgrimage trip to get inspired. Across four hours of shooting, Sift demolished the field and set a new world record enroute to one of the most dominating performances ever seen in a big final. When it was time for the last competition shot, her lead over China’s Qiongyue Zhang was 7 points. Put it this way; the 22-year-old may have well shot that it with her eyes closed and still would have won gold. In the end, the margin of victory was 7.3.
Two hours after helping India win a team silver, an individual gold followed; the first non-team gold at this year’s Games. By that alone, the value of this gold is likely to match up with most other performances in Hangzhou. That’s even before you consider that this is India’s first individual gold at this level ever. Heck, it’s only the second ever won by an Indian woman (Rahi Sarnobat was the first in Jakarta) in an individual event.
It’s even more remarkable when you consider the fact that her personal coach, Deepali Deshpande, cut a worried figure after their phone call on Tuesday night. “We had a conversation last night,” she told this daily. “She was feeling very loose, especially in kneeling. These things tend to happen because of the conditions. So I didn’t know how she would shoot today (Wednesday). She didn’t feel all that good. I asked her to make corrections but I’m not sure what she did.”
In a metaphorical sense, her rifle caught fire. It was apparent from very early on she was shooting in a different postcode when compared to most of the others in the field. In qualifying, her first two series (both kneeling) was a 99 and a 98. In prone, it was two 100s. She finished with a 98 and a 99 in standing, her strongest. The end result was a 594 with 28 inner 10s to qualify joint first with Xia Siyu.
Like any good trailer, this whet the appetite for the main picture. After the kneeling stage, she was top with 154.6 points, 0.1 ahead of Zhang. Like an apex predator, once she saw blood, it was as good as over.
What helped Sift forget about Tuesday’s concerns is her ability to ‘compartmentalise’. “She has the ability to keep aside all negativity and move on,” was how Deepali put it. That’s true. One only had to listen to Sift’s thoughts as she rattled through the ammo inside the large hall, slightly bigger than an Olympic-sized swimming pool. “I didn’t know that (first individual gold in 50m 3 positions,” she told media after her medal. “I was just focusing on my shots (explaining her thought process) and thinking that I have to win. I wanted to be the first person to win individual gold at this year’s Games. I was just thinking about that.”
Just to further espouse her coach’s point, Sift, who won India an Olympic quota in this event not too long ago, believed that she wasn’t all that good in the early stages of the final. “I wasn’t that good in the first five shots in the kneeling stage. But I looked around and saw that others were also not that good so I knew I could cover it up.”
She was sixth after the first five shots. She went from sixth to first after the next 10 shots. Part of her gameplan was to see if she could be among the top shooters after the kneeling section. “We knew that if I get a lead in the first section, I can maintain it in the other sections. Standing is my strongest so I knew that if I could cover my kneeling...”
One of the most surprising aspects about Sift’s already rapid rise is she was an ‘accidental shooter’. She could have become a doctor (she cracked NEET but dropped out after an year of MBBS). In an alternate life, she may well have been a 10m rifle exponent. “50m wasn’t my thing,” she said. “I started off with 10m in 2015-16, 50m only happened in 2019. I came into shooting by accident. A cousin who was into shot-gun introduced me. In my first state (event), I was good. That’s how I started my career.”
It may be nascent but it’s already had an apogee of sorts. In the eyes of Deepali, this is one of the best ever performances by an Indian shooter at the Asian Games. “Whatever she did today is a statement. I feel that it’s all in the mind. Sift is such a girl that she doesn’t think about anything else apart from the target (when she’s shooting).”
Off the range, ‘she’s a typical fun-loving Punjabi kid,’ says Deepali. “She’s always happy but that’s her strength also. She always goes again. She will express her concern but forgets about it. That is the greatest strength for a shooter and Sift is blessed with that. “She also plays a lot of Punjabi songs in the range. In fact, whenever she hears Hindi songs, she goes ‘arey, kyun Hindi gaane sunte rahte ho (why do you keep listening to Hindi songs?’ She’s a very sweet girl.” For four hours or so on Wednesday, she showed why she’s the next cab of the rank in Indian shooting.