CHENNAI: World Championships, World Cups, Asian Championships or domestic competitions, Indian shooters consistently aim for excellence. The hunger and desire to improve constantly has helped them break numerous barriers in recent years. The sizes of the aforementioned competitions might differ, but the Indians continue to set the bar high.
The recent Asian Championship (rifle and pistol), which was conducted at New Delhi, was a case in point. The season is still raw and there are bigger fishes to fry for the shooting bunch but they did what was expected of them by winning medals in abundance.
Powerhouses China gave the event a miss. And so did Iran (reportedly due to visa complications) but Indian, using home advantage to their advantage, shooters ended up being regular podium visitors.
With five gold, five silver and six bronze, Indians, led by the likes of Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Esha Singh and Elavenil Valarivan, to name a few, medalled in all the Olympic-discipline events during the continental meet that was held from February 2 to 14.
The likes of Elavenil, Esha have evolved to be big-hitters in the sport over the years and they were yet again cornered themselves in glory by capturing gold medals in their respective categories at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range.
The fact that more-acclaimed events like the Asian Games and World Championships are scheduled to be held later this year has given the shooters the push to attain good scores.
"As always, it was a highly important outing for shooters who were competing in the Olympic disciplines. Their performance matters, it adds to their rankings, somewhere or the other, their performance could come useful while considering Asian Games squad," Manoj Kumar, India rifle high performance coach, said.
Aishwary, Niraj Kumar and Akhil Sheoran had led the country to podium clean sweep in the men's 50m rifle 3 positions. That was one of the standout performances. Moreover, the trio were shooting in a new format for the first time at the international level.
"With all that in mind, the shooters had prepared and entered the event. We were hopeful that the participation would be higher but it was less. We generally have good competition against shooters from China. And that level of competition was missing, but our athletes didn't take it lightly and they had entered with an aim to return with good scores," he added.
Likewise, there were a few other lesser-known shooters who caught the attention of the coaches.
Vidarsa Kochalumkal of Kerala, who was shooting just for ranking points, topped with a sizeable tally of 590 during the qualification round of women's 50m rifle 3 positions. "She was not part of the medal match but in the last few events, she has been gradually climbing the ranking table. She was impressive," Manoj said.
There were first-timers like Aakriti Dahiya, who showed her potential during the final, by capturing the silver medal ahead of more-touted names.
Manu Bhaker, who had a largely underwhelming 2025, also got a timely balm in the form of a silver medal (lost out on gold in shoot-offs) in the women's 25m pistol. Meghana Sajjanar, perhaps the story of the championship, also broke barriers by capturing bronze in the women's 10m air rifle despite being in the eighth month of pregnancy.
Likewise, the Asian meet was also a platform for junior shooters to display their mettle. With the Junior World Championship set to be held in June, it was an ideal training ground for first-timers and those seeking transition to senior level to leave a strong impression.
There were certainly some performances that appealed to coaches like Sanjeev Rajput but he also felt there's plenty of scope for improvement.
"The results in the 50m rifle 3 positions, if compared to senior level, the scores were less and if I compare it to the world level, it was quite below the standard. But given the format change and tweak in clothing rules, the low scores are understandable. It is okay for now and I feel this is a new phase, I don't feel the scores will be that high in the remaining months of 2026. But come 2027, the scores are bound to be high. The shooters will adapt to the new rules and gradually get better output," Rajput, a former champ in the said category, said.
Adriyan Karmakar, who captured a gold medal at the men's junior 50m rifle 3 positions, is expected to transition to senior level in the upcoming months. "There were shooters who were not winning medals in the past and now they're getting the results and there were many first-timers. Some were decent, nothing unexceptional. Some of them have a good amount of time to learn and evolve. Overall, it was a mixed result. There were some high scores and some low scores," Rajput added.
Apart from Adriyan, Shambhai Shravan Kshirsagar was someone who stood out with a record-breaking output in the junior women's 10m air rifle. For context, her tally of 253.7 (which was Asian Junior Record) in the final was more than Elavenil's gold-winning score of 252 in the senior section.
With the event done and dusted, the shooters will be hopeful of using this experience and reproducing more such performances in the days to come.
