Shooter Suruchi Singh harbours ambitions to match old neighbour Manu Bhaker

Shooter Suruchi Singh harbours ambitions to match old neighbour Manu Bhaker

Suruchi Singh hails from a village in Haryana that neighbours Manu Bhaker’s and trains at the double Olympic medallist’s first academy

About a month ago, pistol coach Suresh Singh got a call from an old pupil. It was double Olympic bronze medallist Manu, who had started her career with the Bhiwani-based coach in 2015. Manu had called to congratulate Suresh on the performance of his latest star shooter.

Competing at the Shooting Nationals in New Delhi last year, Suruchi had won an impressive seven gold medals – claiming titles in the individual and team titles in the youth, junior and senior categories and a mixed team gold in the youth category.

Suresh laughs as he recalls the double Olympic medallist pulling his leg, “ Coach sahab, mere toh kabhi 7 gold medal nahi aye aapke saath! Apne kuch technique chupaya tha mere se! (Coach how come I never won 7 gold medals while training with you. You have almost certainly kept some of your secrets from me!).”

Those seven gold medals wouldn’t be a flash in the pan. At the National Games, Suruchi would shoot another 585 – the third straight senior competition at which she has shot that score (for perspective, the highest score in qualifying at the Olympics was 582) to top qualification. She would follow that up with a dominant display in the final to win gold in the women’s 10m air pistol at the National Games.

With one medal won, the 19-year-old is already preparing to get even better in the mixed-team event. “These are good scores but I know I can do better,” she says.

While Suruchi still has some way to go to match Manu’s achievements, there are a few common threads in the two shooter’s stories apart from the fact that Manu also started her shooting career at Suresh’s Dronacharya Shooting Academy in Bhiwani where Suruchi trains today. Suruchi is from Sasroli village in Haryana’s Jhajjar district, a ten-minute drive from Goria, the village where Manu was born and raised.

While she might now be counted as amongst India’s pistol shooter, Suruchi didn’t start out thinking she would be one.

It was her father Inder Singh’s decision for her to take up the sport. “I wanted to be a sportsperson in my youth but I had to join the army for financial reasons. But I always wanted her to be a sportsperson. The day she was born, I decided I was going to make her play sports,” says Inder, who retired as a havaldar in the Indian army’s Punjab regiment in 2019.

When he returned home after his retirement, Inder’s first choice was for his daughter to become a wrestler. “We are Phogat’s – the same as (Olympians) Vinesh, Geeta and Babita. Wrestling is in our blood. Our village is famous for wrestling.  Goonga Pehelwan (multiple-time Deaflympics gold medallist Virender Singh) is from our village. Suruchi started in wrestling too but she fractured her collarbone after a few months. After that I decided she should be a shooter,” he says.

Then, he decided to take his daughter to Bhiwani’s Dronacharya Shooting Academy, where Suresh held the reputation of being a top coach. “I was Manu Bhaker’s first coach. She came to my academy because we were the first to have the SIUS digital meters. But she progressed so fast that she joined the national camp and then began training in Delhi,” Suresh says.

Suruchi says she was uncertain about the sport at first. “I got scared when I first heard the sound of the pistol at the range. It was really loud! I was wondering what sort of sport this was,” she says.

Her father was adamant she persisted and slowly Suruchi says she learned to appreciate the game. “I like shooting. It’s an individual sport and it isn’t subjective. It’s a fair game. If you shoot a 10.9, it will always be a 10.9,” she says.

While she developed an interest and coach Suresh recognised her talent, there were other challenges. “Shooting is an expensive sport and we are from a very normal family. For many years, Suresh sahab didn’t take any money from us for coaching her. But there are some expenses that we can’t compromise on,” says Inder.

After initially using a pistol provided at her academy, Inder bought a second-hand pistol a couple of years after she started shooting. Although it was a five-year-old piece, it still made a serious dent in Inder’s resources. He had devoted himself to his daughter’s training after his retirement but the family’s only source of income was his pension. “Pistols are really expensive. The first one I bought for her cost a couple of lakhs. I’ve also bought two more for her now so that she has a spare one. If she had to travel for competitions I can’t say no. I’ve taken many loans to pay for this. I’m still slowly paying them back. I’m very careful about money, I haven’t even bought a new set of clothes for myself in the last two years. Everything goes for Suruchi’s shooting, ” he says.

Sometimes  jugaad (improvisations) had to happen. “I wanted Suruchi to shoot at home also but her family couldn’t afford a range. So we used what we call a  pippa. We take an empty tin used to store ghee and place a paper target on top of it. Then we measure out 10m from there and she would shoot at it from that distance,” says Suresh.

The tight budget also meant having to cut costs while travelling to the range to practise. “Bhiwani is some 60 kilometers from our home. To take a vehicle means to spend at least six liters of fuel every day,” says Inder.

Instead, Suruchi and her father take the 9.45 a.m. local train every day. “We go to Jharli junction near our home and then take the train to Bhiwani junction. From there we take an e-rickshaw to the shooting range. It takes an hour-and-a-half on each side,” says Suruchi. While carrying a pistol through any security might seem a difficult task, Inder doesn’t think much of it. “Now even the security guys know her,” he says.

The daily three-hour round trip by train is tiring and the four hours she spends each day at the range is hectic, but Suruchi has converted that grind into results. She competed at her first junior World Cup in Suhl in 2023 where she won bronze in the team event and finished 6 ^th in the individual event. She’s also competed at the Asian junior championships in both 2023 and 2024.

While she was a competent junior shooter, she hit her stride after entering the senior category. She scored her first score of 585 at the 2024 Kumar Surendra Singh Shooting Championships in June 2024 before following that up with her scores at the National Championships and now the National Games.

While she’s still developing as a shooter, coach Suresh says she has several good qualities which will serve as a strong base for her. “She’s not a very complicated shooter. She is someone who is a fast shooter. When she starts her qualifying round, she will keep a stopwatch next to her. Her goal is to finish her series in 45 minutes. But just because she is a fast shooter, doesn’t mean she is careless. She doesn’t try to force her shot. Her best quality is to realise very quickly when she is about to hit a bad shot and she steps back without shooting it,” says Suresh.

Having won gold at her first two senior national level competitions, Suruchi will now prepare for the senior selection trials in New Delhi in four days. Should she perform well enough, she could make the team that will compete for the Indian team in international competitions this season.

While that is Suruchi’s immediate goal, she harbours ambitions of achieving what her illustrious fellow shooter from a neighbouring village and once the same range has. “I’ve met Manu  didi a few times. But I hope I can also compete well against her. She has achieved a lot and maybe I also can do that. Of course, I think of the Olympics. Hum bhi khelenge. Hum bhi le ke ayenge medal! (I will also play the Olympics. I will also win a medal),” she says.