The look down at his screen, the immediate expletive, followed by a forced smile.
Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar had a winner-takes-all final shot for the 50m 3 position world title against Paris Olympics champion Liu Yukun, but made the error of giving the Chinese marksman an inch – paying for it with a gold medal lost.
A few hours later, India’s mixed team air pistol stalwarts Esha Singh and newly-minted gold medallist Samrat Rana, locked 9-9 in a shootout for gold, were unable to find shots in the 10 range when it really mattered and had to settle for a 10-16 loss to China’s Hu Kai and Yao Qianxun.
India missed out on two gold at the World Championships in Cairo to the Chinese, but the silver medals, along with Rana’s gold and Elavenil’s bronze earlier in the competition, have made this one of the most successful Indian campaigns at the shooting World Championships, with all four medals coming in Olympic events.
“Yahan medal jitna hai, yahi soch ke aya tha. Olympics se badh kar Turram Khan yahan hote hain (I had come with the goal of winning a medal. The competition at World Championships is much tougher compared to the Olympics). So this silver medal is special for me. Yes, I felt a bit of pressure on the final shot but that’s shooting for you. I am glad that I had a shot at the gold medal,” Aishwary told The Indian Express after his event.
India has had a history of air rifle and pistol medals, but the 50m 3P event has witnessed a boom since 2022. Aishwary’s silver adds to the bronze medal won by Akhil Sheoran at the 2023 Baku World Championships and the Paris Olympics bronze won by Swapnil Kusale. The current world record holder in the women’s section is Sift Kaur Samra, who took gold at the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games – where Aishwary picked up a silver. He also has two Asian Championship gold medals. There have been a slew of World Cup medals won by Indians from 2022 as well pointing to the uptick in fortunes. Even as recently as six years ago, India’s best moment in the 50m 3P event was the fourth-place finish by Joydeep Karmakar at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Karmakar, who coaches Aishwary for Madhya Pradesh, says the change has come from Indians learning to deal with shooting in the wind better. The 50m events take place at outdoor ranges where conditions can affect scores.
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“Howsoever good you are, you will not be able to perform if you’re not able to handle the wind in outdoor shooting. What was happening earlier was that somebody shooting a 592 would shoot a 586 when there’s wind,” Karmakar told The Indian Express. The current crop of Indian shooters, especially in the men’s section, don’t try to fight the conditions at a range, but shade their shots based on the wind.
Unbalanced in the final
On Tuesday, Aishwary came agonisingly close to gold.
A slow start in the final – after which he was dead last with 154.8 points after three kneeling series’ – made it look like it would be a forgettable day for the 24-year old. But Aishwary came back into the mix with a lights-out 158.7 in prone. It was important for the Indian shooter to make up ground as scores in the standing section of the event often fluctuate.
In the two standing series’ before eliminations would begin, Aishwary matched the Paris gold medallist with a 102.6 total and was only behind by 0.2 on overall scores. It wasn’t until the penultimate shot that the Indian, who was trailing Liu all throughout the final, got the slenderest of 0.1-point lead.
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In the final shot, Aishwary took his time to shoot, the nerves of an impending gold hitting the Indian hard. Shooting second at a decisive moment would be a mistake.
“Whenever he takes a shot late, his balance tends to veer forward. In the last shot, he moved forward slightly. He told me after the match that he was late to pull the trigger for that shot and missed out on the gold because of that. It will be a learning experience for him,” Indian national rifle coach Manoj Kumar told The Indian Express.
(With inputs from Nitin Sharma)
