CHENNAI: Sift Kaur Samra was in a spot of bother during the early stages of her competition at the Tiro Federal Argentino de Buenos Aires Shooting Range in Buenos Aires in the late afternoon (early Saturday morning IST) on Friday. But she made a remarkable comeback to capture her first gold medal at the ISSF World Cup.
The lone Indian to have earned a spot in the eight-woman 50m 3 positions final of the ongoing World Cup in Argentina, Sift was fighting for survival during kneeling — the first stage of the final. While Sift continued to err, the rest of the pack continued to thrive and widen the gap. After kneeling, Sift was bottom of the list — 3.5 off the No 7 shooter and a sizeable 7.2 off the leader.
But that's not a new territory for the 23-year-old, who has made a habit of strong comebacks. In the second stage (prone, where the shooters lie flat on their stomach), Sift began to find her range and gradually gained ground on the rest. Despite a marked improvement, she was still last after the prone stage. However, Sift had saved the best for last. Like a Marvel superhero gaining their super power, Sift was a different beast in the final stage (standing). She was unstoppable while the rest struggled to hit the mark. After 10 shots of standing, Sift had flipped the narrative upside down. From a position of no hope, she had captured the coveted gold with a tally of 458.6, a first for the country in the ongoing competition.
Germany's Anita Mangold (455.3) and Kazakhstan's Arina Altukhova (445.9) captured silver and bronze, respectively.
After a subdued outing in the 2024 Paris Games, this is some sort of a comeback for Sift, who's considered one of the brightest talents in the sport. The world record holder was visibly pleased with the final outcome. "It's my first gold at the senior level and it feels amazing. A new place (Argentina) and a new World Cup and a new beginning of 2025," Sift said while speaking to ISSF later.
"When it was kneeling, it was so bad. But I did not lose hope and I knew we can do it until the last shot. I have had this experience in the past, not doing well in kneeling but ending up doing good. But yes, I will work on kneeling more so that I can be first from start to finish," the 2022 Asian Games winner added.
It was certainly a performance that lifted the spirits of Deepali Deshpande, the national rifle head coach, who has been overseeing Sift's training for some time. Even for someone like Deepali, the gold outcome was a bit of a surprise given the slow start. But she is not surprised by her fighting qualities.
"Prone and standing had always been her strength. Many times she has done this (fightback), pulled up her performance after a slow start. Yesterday (Friday), kneeling was really bad, prone was normal, it wasn't extraordinary, but it helped her get closer to other shooters. Standing was incredible. She shot extremely well while others were extremely bad. That helped her. I knew she would be in medal hunt but I was not sure about the gold," Deepali told this daily from Buenos Aires.
What has encouraged Deepali is the fact that the shooters navigated testing conditions. "In such a difficult range, keeping that pace, maintaining that precision is necessary. It was late in the evening for us here. The wind was there and the light was also changing. So it was tough but she did really well," the Dronacharya Awardee assessed.
Sift's gold capped off a positive day for India. Chain Singh had captured bronze hours before Sift's effort. There were as many as three finalists (maximum entries that a country is allowed) including Chain in the men's 50m rifle 3 positions. After ending the Olympic hoodoo in Paris, the rise in aspirations is crystal clear. "We are building a team for the next Olympics. It was the first outing for the Indian team. And we got a good start. I have said it before also, we just wanted a medal in the last Olympics (Paris) as we had not won in the Olympics before that. Now, things have changed. During the last cycle we saw the strength, we want all the medals now. There is no other alternative. We need to be at the top of our game all the time. We have a strong bench strength. Now, Swapnil (Kusale) is not in the team, Akhil (Sheoran) is not in the team. Despite that, in testing conditions, we had three finalists in the men's section. That itself says so much about our bench strength," Deepali noted.
Medals at the Paris Games seems to have handed Indian shooting a wind in their sails.
