2) Olena Kostevych
The pistol shooter from Ukraine made heads turn at the early age of 17 when she won the 10m Air Pistol event at the 2002 ISSF World Shooting Championships. Her good run extended up to the 2004 Olympics where she bagged the Gold in 10m air pistol. Kostevych’s form declined in the later years though she made a comeback of sorts at the London Olympics of 2012 where she won two Bronze medals, one in 10m air pistol and another in 25m pistol.
At 31, Kostevych doesn’t have a lot of time in her shooting career and her appearance in the next Olympics remain shrouded in question marks. That’s why the Ukrainian will pose a threat to the chances of Heena Sidhu, who hasn’t enjoyed the best of forms going into the Olympics.
But Sidhu will take heart from the fact when she won the gold medal at the ISSF World Cup Finals in Munich, Germany in 2013 and Kostevych was one of the shooters she got the better of.
