Indian shooting contingent success stories in past Olympics see them heading into the London Olympics with high hopes of making the country proud.
Two medals at the Olympics, silver in Athens by Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore and gold by Abhinav Bindra plus consistent performance at various international events worldwide has indeed seen the standard of sport reach great height and pinned high hopes on the contingent travelling to the sporting extravaganza starting later this month.
But then the stalwarts forming the shooting contingent would know past performances would hardly matter and their score on the given day would eventually on the big day. Indian would field 11 members in the London, two more than last time, and the challenge would be spearheaded by Abhinav Bindra, Ronjan Sodhi and Gagan Narang.
Out of 11, everyone except for Shagun Chowdhary has won medals at world level. Well their performance since last Olympics at the World stage does see them go into the quadrennial event as a strong force to reckon to.
And even the national coach Sunny Thomas is optimistic about their chances and feels that the increase in number of shooters from last time does show that the sport is on a rise and they just need good performance at the Olympics to live up to the billing.
And even talking about their preparations, all the shooters have been busy preparing hard for the gala event in different parts of the Europe.
India would start their campaign on the July 28 with Vijay Kumar aiming for glory at the in the 10-metres Air Pistol event. Now Vijay’s past records at the global events makes him a strong contender. He has three gold and one silver medal at the Commonwealth 2010 and two bronze in the Guangzhou Asian Games.
Following Kumar, Heena Sidhu and Annuraj Singh would be in action and they too look in great shape to win in London.
But then the July 30, can be India’s biggest day at the London Olympics when Narang and Bindra hit the range in the 10-metre air rifle. Now these two stalwarts do not need any introduction and if it proves to be their day, then hardly could anyone stop them.
Two days later, making his first appearance at the Olympics, Ronjan Sodhi would enter the range and expect him to be on fire from the word go. Competing in the double trap event he is perhaps the biggest medal hope for the country and he also knows.
And there are other shooters who would be taking part in the event who are very well capable shooting some good scores and end up on the medal tally.
India shooting contingent do have the firepower to emerge as the supreme force in the summer games and only they have to take cope with the pressure well and if they can hold on to their nerves and shoot to their best ability, India sure would lead the shooting charts in the London extravaganza.
By Samikshan Dutta Choudhury
Indian Sports News Network
