NAGOYA: There has not been so many ebb and flow in a players' career as his. He won the World Championships title and became one of the youngest shooters to do so. Was out of the team the next year and could not qualify for Paris Games in the trials. String of fourth-place finishes and now an Arjuna Awards snub? Well, that's Rudrankksh Patil, the bronze-medal winner for you.
In the beautiful Toyota Highlands, the shooter came out brimming with two medals dangling about his neck. The vicissitudes of life have taught him to take everything in his stride, even the medal. He could have won the gold and was leading until he froze and squandered a 1.4-point advantage. In the end, both China's Sheng Lihao and Himanshu Dhillon surpassed him. Yet, the medal was fulfilling for him.
It is easy to be strong but not that strong that tears don't well up. Patil recollected three moments when he cried. "It was last year's World Championships, when things did not go that well," he said. "I wanted to win gold twice, but I could not. So I was feeling very disappointed during that time. And then we had the World Cup final. Again, I was fourth. Almost back-to-back I was coming fourth, and that was really a tough moment for me."
That is the reason why he would take third here on Monday in the individual event.
If finishing fourth was leading to dejection, Arjuna Award rejection was even a greater pain. His CV is as decorated as any Khel Ratna winner but for some reason, his name has not been included in the National Sports Awards list. This is one of the greatest regrets in his career. Even this year, he was ignored.
"The Arjuna Award list came in January and again my name was not there," he said. "It was very funny for me. I have been World Number 1 twice, world record holder four times — three times I broke it in India, four times abroad. I won the World Championship, World Cups, almost 10 World Cup titles, four or five Asian titles, and I'm still not getting the award!"
Patil felt he should have been conferred with the award much earlier. "When I won the World Championships, I was the youngest in 2022, and then I saw that D Gukesh also won it, and he got the Khel Ratna because he was the youngest," he said. "So I was like, I'm not even getting that award, what is this? And I saw that, you know, my other teammates who won bronze were able to get it. So that was really the second reason I cried."
And the third time he cried was during the Asian Championships. "Third was in the Asian Championship. I was seeing my pathetic state of practice," he said with a hearty laugh. "I was like these are matches in the country and I can't be shooting like this. I need to do something about it. And it just helped me, motivated me a lot. So that time, my past fourth ranks, and Asian Championship I had the track record of coming fourth. So I wanted to break that somehow. In Jakarta, I had bronze, and this time, I wanted to at least win a silver, and I won gold. So, that was a very emotional medal for me."
One of the reasons why Patil was celebrating his bronze even more were those fourth finishes. "I am very happy because of the bronze medal, because a lot of things could have gone wrong, but all of the things worked well. And I would like to look at the positive side compared to the negative side."
He also said the teamwork was very good and cohesive. "This time I'm very happy to say that our HPD worked very hard to have the same final experience in Bhopal. There was a lot of cheering and all, so we played this final three-four times before coming over here. So for us, it was basically not that high, but we were ready to handle the pressure and the heat."
He also reflected on the days when he was asked to make way for another shooter during the World Championships. When asked if that broke his rhythm? "I think so. But all these things are just ifs and buts. I can't be sure. But the impact of that tournament — they are once-in-four-years — Asian Championship, the once-in-four-years World Championship which happened during that time — not playing that maybe affected me by breaking the rhythm but I'm not sure."
For now though, he is focussed on the positives and hoping to win more medals in the near future.
