Confident Naruka eager to better Paris show at Worlds

Anantjeet Singh ‘Naruka seems to have developed a happy habit of rising to the ‘occasion. Over the past couple of years, the 27-year-old skeet shooter from Jaipur has shot an individual silver at the Hangzhou Asian Games, finished fourth in the mixed team event at Paris Olympics with Maheshwari Chauhan, and took an individual bronze at the World Cup Final.

- Shantanu Srivastava

Last month, Naruka won the Asian Championships in Shymkent, Kazakhstan to once again prove his mettle. It was an improvement from his second-place finish in the same competition last year and a shot in the arm ahead of the Shotgun World Championships (Oct 8-19) in Athens, Greece.

Naruka warded off a stiff challenge from Mansour Al-Rashidi of Kuwait, a former Asian Games champion, to shoot 57 of possible 60 targets while Al-Rashidi secured 56 hits.

Unlike rifle and pistol events which are competed in sanitised indoor ranges — except the 50m 3P qualifiers which are outdoors —all shotgun competitions are outdoor disciplines, which makes weather a critical variable. The conditions were windy and dusty in Shymkent but Naruka banked on his experience to go about his business.