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The Indian shooters, especially the young guns, have impressed one and all during the first three months of 2018. Not only did they finish the Junior shooting World Cup on the second position behind China with a total of 22 medals in Australia, earlier this month, but they also managed to win the senior ISSF World Cup in Mexico, earlier this year, with a tally of nine medals.
With such tremendous results from the juniors, 2018 seems to be a watershed moment for the Indian shooters. Or is it?
Heena Sidhu, India's first female pistol shooter to become world no 1, believes that the World Cup success is not a good barometer of the progress made by the Indian shooters.
"See, the World Cup scores were not very high. There were not a lot of teams. The real challenge is coming. The scores in Mexico were quite low," Sidhu said to Sportskeeda. "So forget the medals. If you look at the numbers, then we have a lot of work to do."
To add to that, the fact that winning medals at the World Cup does not guarantee a berth in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is also something that needs to be pondered on.
"Also, the WorldCup doesn’t have the Olympic quota, so you don’t see a lot of shooters coming. There’s a reason why the top shooters don’t come to the World Cup. They’re preparing for the big matches," she said.
However, Sidhu, who is currently in Australia, ahead of the Commonwealth Games, believes that both the junior and the senior World Cups were good opportunities for the young shooters to get some crucial experience under their belt at such an early age.
"Its good for the juniors to go to the matches and get some confidence, but at the same time we have to make sure that the quality of the score doesn’t go down," said Sidhu. "Whether you win a medal, or don’t win a medal, that’s not really the question here. The real question is what you have learnt, and how you take that to the World Championships."
The Indian shooting contingent's high-performance observer Ronak Pandit also felt that though the juniors did well to bring home a number of medals, real success for Indian shooting as a sport would be when the young guns can actually make the jump to the senior level successfully.
"Many juniors cannot handle all these changes to their support staff, coaches, new methods of training. So sometimes what happens is they lose track," said Pandit. "So we need to prepare them well during the transition period."
High hopes for CWG
With such brilliant performances from the juniors, and a strong seniors lineup already present, it is safe to say that the Indian shooting contingent is one of the strongest at the Commonwealth Games.
"I wish all of them win a medal," joked Pandit ahead of the mega sporting event.
However, coming back to full seriousness, the high-performance observer went on to state that it is a sport, and hence one should not really put a number on the medals tally as of yet.
"But it’s a sport, and even someone like Sachin (Tendulkar) can get out on a duck. So let's not put a number on that," said Pandit, who is also the coach and husband of Sidhu. "Let’s just go in there with an open mind. We are well prepared to win them all."
Sidhu was also upbeat about India's chances at the Commonwealth Games. "India’s chances for shooting at CWG are always very bright. Even in the Asian Games, we do very well. And looking at everybody’s preparations, I think we should be expecting similar or better results," said the 28-year-old.
"We see that the participation has also increased, the scores are also good, and we see that every year they’re all shooting very high scores," she said.
With top guns like Jitu Rai, Gagan Narang, Ankur Mittal, Apurvi Chandela, along with Heena Sidhu, India already have a strong lineup. To add to the mix, promising youngsters like Mehuli Ghosh, Manu Bhake and Anish Bhanwal also make for an exciting combination.
As the high-performance observer himself puts it, it could well turn out to be one of the best Commonwealth Games that the Indian shooters have had till date.
"Let's just enjoy the games, and I’m sure we will have one of the best performances we’ve ever had," Ronak Pandit signed off.
