2024 Year in Sports, Shooting: Manu mania grips Paris; new shooting league on the horizon; Kalikesh named NRAI president
2024 Year in Sports, Shooting: Manu mania grips Paris; new shooting league on the horizon; Kalikesh named NRAI president
Indian shooting touched new highs in 2024 with an unprecedented three medals coming from the Olympics.
While Manu Bhaker’s historic double in 10m air pistol – individual and mixed team (with Sarabjot Singh) – became the toast of an entire nation, Swapnil Kusale managed to venture where none had ever been; he is the only Indian to clinch a medal in a smallbore event.
Despite the roaring success at the Paris Games, including the Paralympics where India won four medals, there were a few gut-wrenching ‘so-near-yet-so-far’ moments, which sport tends to often witness.
Here’s a recap of the biggest highlights of shooting from the year gone by…
Esha Singh and Varun Tomar asserted Indian supremacy by winning the Olympic quota with gold medals in men’s and women’s air pistol in the Asian shooting championship in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Monday. It was the second Olympic quota in men’s air pistol, and the first in women’s air pistol. Later on in the competition, Rhythm Sangwan and Vijayveer Sidhu brought in the 16th and 17th quotas respectively.
Indian skeet shooters rose to the challenge as Anant Jeet Singh Naruka and Raiza Dhillon bagged the men’s and women’s Olympic quota with silver medals in the Asian shotgun championship in Kuwait.
The NRAI contested the disqualification of trap marksman Manavjit Singh Sandhu, who was barred from competition at the Asia Olympic Qualifiers because of “faulty” gun stock, categorically telling the event’s Jury of Appeal that he was not seeking any “unfair advantage”.
India topped the medals table in the shooting World Cup in Cairo, Egypt. It won two gold, three silver and a bronze. Britain was second with two gold and a silver, while Germany followed with two gold and three bronze. Korea also won two gold medals. While Sonam Maskar (10m air rifle) and Anuradha Devi (10m air pistol) bagged silver medals on World Cup debut, Divyansh Singh Panwar shot a world record 253.7 in the final to clinch the air rifle gold.
Olympian Aishwarya Pratap Singh Tomar of Guru Nanak Dev University clinched the men’s 10m air rifle gold with a dominating performance in the fourth Khelo India University Games at the Kahilipara Shooting Range. The 23-year-old qualified for the final in second spot but never looked in any trouble as he scored a total of 252 points, beating second placed Umamahesh Maddieni of KLEF University by 2.1 points.
India’s shotgun foreign coach, Marcello Dradi of Italy revealed he is suffering from liver cancer. Dradi was hired early last year by the Sports Authority of India (SAI) on the recommendations of the NRAI after Australian shotgun expert Russell Mark, the 1996 Atlanta Olympics gold medallist in double trap, and his wife, skeet coach Lauryn Mark, quit following alleged differences with the national sports body for shooting.
Even though none of the Indian air rifle shooters made the final, Indian shooting finished on top at the Granada World Cup with four gold, three silver and three bronze medals.
Indian shooter Sift Kaur Samra won the Sportstar Aces Award for the Sportswoman of the Year (Individual) at the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai, while Tilottama Sen was named the Young Achiever of the Year (Girl).
Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra said that he will be one of the torch bearers of the Paris Olympics Games. “Excited to share that I’ll be a torch bearer for the @paris2024 Olympic Games, a beacon of peace and perseverance across the globe. This flame represents our collective spirit and the power of dreams. A great privilege and honour,” Bindra wrote on ‘X’ with a picture of the torch.
It was an embarrassing moment for India in front of the international shooting community of 50-odd nations when the ‘flash targets’ for the finals of the prestigious WSPS Para World Cup trap events had to be discarded by the foreign jury as they were not fit for competition.
Accidental firing by a teenaged shooter left a physiotherapist with a broken jaw that required an emergency surgery to dislodge the pellet during a tournament in Chennai, making it the third serious breach of safety norms in Indian shooting this year. This comes after a shooter lost his thumb while filling the cylinder of his pistol in Faridabad recently and a rifle exponent pointed her gun towards the spectators gallery during the Nationals.
The shooting selection trials saw the country’s top shooters (who had excelled in the 66th National Championships, the Digvijay Singh Memorial competition and any other competition recognised by the governing body of NRAI) in each discipline go up against each other to fill up the two available places in each Olympic event. A lot of controversies erupted but the NRAI eventually came up with the squads in June.
The NRAI initiated the process of hiring high-performance managers and coaches for the next Olympic cycle (LA 2028) as the tenure of the current set of experts ended after the Paris Games in August.
The NRAI got the green signal from the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) to swap one of the women’s pistol Olympic quota places for women’s trap, and field Shreyasi Singh for the Paris Games. With Manu Bhaker finishing on top in both women’s air pistol and sports pistol, emerging as the only shooter to compete in two events, one of the air pistol quota places fell vacant. While Esha Singh and Rhythm Sangwan gained entry for Olympics in sports pistol and air pistol events, swapping their position from the Olympic quota that they had won, the Olympic quota won by Asian Games gold medallist Palak Gulia in air pistol was swapped for women’s trap.
The NRAI announced the Indian Shotgun team for the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Prithviraj Tondaiman made the cut in men’s trap while Rajeshwari Kumari was to take aim in women’s trap. Anant Jeet Singh Naruka was India’s sole men’s skeet shooter while Raiza Dhillon and Maheshwari Chauhan took part in women’s skeet, completing the five quota places that the shotgun squad had earned. Maheshwari and Anant Jeet also featured as the sole Indian pair in the Skeet Mixed Team event, which was making its debut at the Paris Games. Incidentally, all five named were competing in their first Olympic Games.
Abhinav Bindra backed the NRAI over the exclusion of 10m air rifle shooter Rudrankksh Patil from India’s shooting squad for the Paris Olympics. Patil had bagged a 10m air rifle quota for the Games, but could not find a place in the 15-member Indian squad for the quadrennial event after finishing behind Sandeep Singh and Arjun Babuta in the NRAI’s selection trials .Citing the Olympic guidelines, where a country can only send top two shooters in one event from trials to the Games, Bindra said, “See, it’s not a call. It’s a matter of selection. There’s a due process laid out and they followed the process.”
The NRAI announced a 15-member Indian Rifle and Pistol squad for the Paris 2024 Olympics. Two-time Olympian Manu Bhaker was the only athlete to have participated in more than one individual event- the women’s 10m air pistol and women’s 25m pistol. The team consisted of eight rifle and seven pistol shooters. World champion Rudrankksh Patil, World Championship silver medallist Mehuli Ghosh and Worlds bronze medallist Akhil Sehoran were some of the leading shooters to miss the cut, along with few others like Tilottama Sen, Shriyanka Sadangi and Varun Tomar who had won the Olympic quota.
India came joint third with France with one gold (Sarabjot Singh) and one bronze (Sift Kaur Samra) at the Munich World Cup, the final international meet ahead of the Olympics. China topped with four gold, four silver and three bronze medals. Norway won a gold, silver and bronze for the second place. Britain, Serbia and Turkey were the other teams to win a gold each.
Adriana Runo Oliva hit 45 of 50 targets in women’s trap to not only register a Games record but also win Guatemala’s first Olympic gold in any sport. Italy’s Silvana Stanco claimed the silver, while Australia’s Penny Smith took bronze.
Georgian shooter Nino Salukvadze became the first woman to compete at 10 Olympic Games in a career which began representing the Soviet Union. Salukvadze has competed at every Summer Olympics since 1988 — when she won gold as a 19-year-old Soviet prodigy. She set her latest record when she stepped into the shooting range for qualification in the women’s 10m air pistol.
Asian Games gold-medallist marksman Jitu Rai, who debunked the myth that a humble background can hinder success at the highest level, decided to retire from the Indian Army to train young athletes to become world-beaters. He plans to open an academy in the near future.
It took India 12 years to bag a medal in shooting again after Vijay Kumar’s silver in the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol in London. Manu Bhaker won a bronze medal in women’s 10m air pistol and followed it up with a mixed team bronze alongside Sarabjot Singh in the same discipline. Swapnil Kusale brought home India’s first medal in a smallbore event, winning third place in 50m rifle 3 positions. The country came painstakingly close to a podium finish on three separate occasions when Bhaker (25m sports pistol), Arjun Babuta (10m air rifle) and Anant Jeet Singh Naruka and Maheshwari Chauhan (skeet mixed team), all finished fourth.
Avani Lekhara became the first Indian woman to win two gold medals at the Paralympic Games, defending her title in the women’s 10m air rifle standing SH1 shooting event with a world record score. Mona Agarwal won a bronze in the same discipline. After Manish Narwal’s silver in men’s 10m air pistol SH1, Rubina Francis capped off the strong Indian show with a bronze medal in women’s air pistol SH1.
The NRAI elected Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo as the president at the General Body meeting held at the Constitution Club, New Delhi on Saturday. The election, conducted by the Retired Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court, Anil Dev Singh, as the Returning Officer, was also contested by V.K. Dhall. Kalikesh won 36-21.
The NRAI announced the launch of the country’s first-ever franchise league in shooting called the Shooting League of India (SLI). This initiative was proposed by NRAI president Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo and has received approval from the Governing Body. While the exact timeline for the league is yet to be confirmed, the inaugural edition is likely to take place in March 2025, pending approval from the ISSF.
Vivaan Kapoor won the trap silver to provide a heady climax for the host in the World Cup Final shooting championship at the Dr. Karni Singh Range, Tughlakabad. Earlier, Sonam Maskar had won a silver in the women’s 10m air rifle and Akhil Sheoran clinched a bronze in the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions. China topped the medals table with five gold and three bronze. Italy was second with one gold, three silver and a bronze. Germany, France, Hungary, Denmark, San Marino and USA were the other countries to win at least one gold medal. India was ninth with two silver and two bronze medals, among the 14 countries that managed to find a place in the medals tally. The event was robbed of some sheen after the Indian Olympic medallists pulled out and some British shooters missed the flight to India owing to some confusion over visa and other paperwork.
The shooting competition in the recent Olympics was conducted far away from the Olympic city of Paris. The ISSF, having taken a hint, has decided to strengthen the sport with a lively format for the next edition in Los Angeles in 2028. Once finalised, the new format would first be implemented in the next World Championship and will be operational in the following international events in the run up to the Los Angeles Games.
The junior Indian shooting squad won five medals, including one gold, on the final day of the ISSF Junior World Championship Rifle/Pistol/Shotgun in Lima, Peru, to comfortably top the medal tally with 13 gold, three silver and eight bronze medals. Italy finished second with five gold and four silver and bronze medals each while Norway came third with four gold and a total of 10 medals.
India will host the 2026 Asian Rifle/Pistol Cup, as announced by the NRAI following its allotment by the Asian Shooting Confederation (ASC). The NRAI has been asked to confirm the tournament dates to the ASC.
The 2024 FISU World University Championship finished with India topping the leaderboard with 10 gold, nine silver and seven bronze medals ahead of Czechia (eight gold, one silver). Italy was third with three gold, a silver and four bronze, while Korea followed with two gold, five silver and two bronze. Taiwan, France and Switzerland were the other teams to win at least one gold.
After her coach Jaspal Rana and father Ramkishan Bhaker lambasted the Sports Ministry and selection committee for overlooking Manu Bhaker for the Khel Ratna award despite her monumental achievements, the double Olympic medallist too to social media and acknowledged a potential oversight on her part in the nomination process for this year’s National Sports Awards.
The ISSF confirmed India as the host for a Junior World Cup in the forthcoming season in 2025. In a written communication, the ISSF has conveyed the hosting rights for India, while offering two windows in the calendar to slot the competition .The two slots figure in the September to early November period. The NRAI will decide on the dates soon and convey to the ISSF.
In a big blow to India’s medal prospects, the executive board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) dropped shooting, weightlifting and hockey from the roster of medal sports for the much-delayed 2026 Youth Olympics in Dakar, Senegal.
