Narmada beats Paris Games finalist Ramita to win gold in 10m air rifle

The newly-built shooting range at the Maharana Pratap Sports College, reverberated with pellets hitting the target as the country's top shooters engaged in intense action at the 38th National Games here.

- Avishek Roy

DEHRADUN: The newly-built shooting range at the Maharana Pratap Sports College, reverberated with pellets hitting the target as the country's top shooters engaged in intense action at the 38th National Games here.

Shooting has produced a stream of precocious talents in recent times - three of the five Olympics medals at Paris Olympics has come from the sport.

While the talent pool has expanded, the competition at home is fierce. In women's 10m air rifle, particularly, the level is so high, that shooters are pushing each other to limits. The contest to book a Paris Olympics berth was tough enough for both quota winners - Tilottama Sen and Mehuli Ghosh - to lose the race at home in the Olympic selection trial.

Unlike Tilottama and Mehuli, Asian Games medallist Ramita Jindal seized the opportunity to make the cut for Paris. In her debut Olympics, she impressed the way she fought back in the qualification to enter the final. She ended up in the seventh position.

On her return, Ramita took a three-month break from shooting. "There were a lot of lessons to be learnt from Paris. One is that I need to improve in the final. Qualification is my strong point. But I start slow in the final and gradually pick up. I keep fighting till the last shot and squeezed in (medal contention). Sometimes, in bigger matches like the one in Paris Olympics it doesn't work like that," reflects Ramita.