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| Apurvi Chandela |
Glorious Past:
Shooting, the sport that has always been the go-to event for India at the big stages. The only individual Olympic Gold medal India won was at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Abhinav Bindra made the whole nation proud as the tri-color rose above the other flags at the podium of the Men’s 10m air rifle event. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore won the silver medal at Men’s Double Trap Shooting in Athens Olympics 2004. London Olympics 2012 has been the best Olympics for India in recent times as shooters Vijay Kumar and Gagan Narang won Silver and Bronze medals respectively in their respective categories, i.e. 25m Rapid Fire Pistol and 10m Air Rifle. Shooters have contributed largely to the all-time Olympic medals tally for India and Apurvi Chandela is tipped to take the legacy forward at Summer Olympics 2021, Tokyo.
Can Apurvi be our very first Golden Girl?
Apurvi Chandela is an Indian shooter who generally competes in the Women’s 10m and 25m Air Rifle event. She first came into the limelight in 2012 at an age of 19 years, when she won the gold medal in the Senior Women’s 10m Air Rifle event at the National Shooting Championships, in New Delhi. Two years later, she won two individual and two team medals at the Intershoot Championships at The Hague, Netherlands. Later that year, she won the Gold Medal at Glasgow Commonwealth Games, making a new Commonwealth Games record of 206.7 points in the final.
In Rio Olympics 2016, it was a bad run for Apurvi as she finished in 34th position out of 51 contestants. But later she came back and won a bronze medal at the 2018 Asian Games, pairing with Ravi Kumar for the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team event. But the thing that is making the whole nation dream for an Olympic gold medal is that Apurvi won a Gold Medal at IISF World Cup 2019, New Delhi in 10m Air Rifle. She also bagged the Silver in the Mixed team event. She is considered one of the bests in the world in her respective events and can bring an Olympic medal back home, if not gold.
Massive Hopes of more than a billion people can backfire:
Imagine the pressure of 135 crores peopling shouting and rooting for you to do something at a mega event. It is unimaginably immense. And there are past examples where, in shooting itself, that even the champions have crumbled under the pressure of hopes. Manavjit Singh Sandhu, India’s legendary trap shooter, is one of them. He is a 4 time Olympian, has loads of medals at Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, and IISF World Cups, most of them are Gold medals. He has been world number 1 during most of his playing career. He still holds the Asian record of 124 shots out of 125 tries. But at the Olympics, he faltered massively. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he finished 12th, improving his 19th position at Athens 2004. In his last Olympic Games in 2016, he finished 16th.
Hopes will be high, the whole nation will be watching as the shooting a contingent of India will take the center stage at Olympics 2021. There are hopes of multiple medals from a comparatively large shooting squad boarding the plane for Tokyo. Apurvi Chandela will be the standout among them in terms of chances of bringing a medal. Amid the fear of failure at the big stage, Apurvi Chandela, competing for the Women’s 25m Air Rifle event, will be India’s best bid for a 2nd individual Olympic Gold.
Tags: Apurvi Chandela, Abhinav Bindra, Tokyo Olympic, Shooting, Indian Athlete
An Article By: Abhiroop Basu
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