Gagan Narang, who won the men’s air rifle gold at the World Cup Final in Bangkok recently, is one of the brightest shooters in the country, writes Kamesh Srinivasan.
Gagan Narang put behind him the bitter memories of the Beijing Olympics, where he narrowly missed a berth for the final, to beat the best of shooters in the world at the season-ending World Cup Final in Bangkok. The 25-year-old marksman from Hyderabad was absolutely unstoppable, as he accounted for two world records, one that equalled the perfect 600 out of 600 and the other entirely owned by him, a total of 703.5.
“It was great for me to win the gold in the World Cup Final. To do that with two world records was absolutely out of the world. It can’t get any better than this, I guess,” said Gagan, who had shot a 595 in the Olympics — a point less than the eventual gold medal winner Abhinav Bindra — but missed the final.
“It’s a fantastic performance by Gagan. He has shown a lot of character,” said Abhinav while lauding the brilliant effort of his team-mate who bounced back after the disappointment of the Olympics.
Abhinav, incidentally, had opted out of the World Cup Final as he didn’t have the motivation to take part.
Champions like Gagan don’t sit and brood over their disappointing performance, they just move on to new targets. “I knew I was good, but people doubted my ability. I kept quiet as I prefer my rifle to do the talking,” said Gagan.
National coach, Sunny Thomas, was on hand to evaluate Gagan’s stupendous effort. He was all praise for the shooter. “I just couldn’t digest the observations of the people who said that it was a bad performance when he shot 595 in the Olympics. He was just unlucky. Three of his first four shots were nine. Still he fought brilliantly to score three 100s after a 97 in Beijing. In the fifth series, he had an 8.9 for a 98 and then finished with a 100. He missed the final on the count-back, when four others made it with 595. It was that close. But for the 0.1 miss, he could have been ahead of Abhinav in the final. It was not his day,” said Thomas in defence of Gagan.
Talking of Gagan’s showing in Bangkok, Thomas gave full credit to the shooter for scoring a perfect 600. “He was very confident. He was great in practice. After five series he stopped briefly for having a sip of water. I had finished a bottle of water by then. I was worried that he should not lose the momentum. But he returned quickly to wind up with the world record,” said the National coach.
Gagan said he knew the world record was coming his way. “After the first series, I wanted the record. I had done it earlier and wanted to make it official,” he said.
The world record had earlier been jointly held by Tavarit Majchacheep of Thailand and Denis Sokolov of Russia. The Thai had shot the record in the Asian Championship in Langkawi in January 2000, while the Russian equalled it at the European Championship in Winterthur, Switzerland, in March this year.
Gagan was in such good form that he outclassed world champion and multiple Olympic medallist, Matthew Emmons of the US, by one point for a final world record score of 703.5. Emmons, who had won the 50-metre rifle 3-position gold and the prone silver over the previous two days, shot the best in the final, a 104.5, but could not bridge the gap following a 598 in the qualifying series.
“I knew that one-point lead was not big and that I had to be on my toes. I started with a 10.9 and had a 9.8 that eased the pressure on me,” revealed Gagan, who had shot 71 tens on the trot, including the 10 shots in the ‘sighter’ series. He had only one other nine, a 9.7 from the eighth shot.
To his credit, Gagan maintained his lead throughout the 10-shot final to emerge winner. With a 10.3 from the last shot, Gagan eased past the world record of 703.1 set by Thomas Farnik of Austria in the World Cup Final in Granada, Spain, in 2004.
Incidentally, Farnik finished eighth among 10 shooters in Bangkok with a score of 698.
The Beijing Olympics silver medallist, Zhu Qinan of China, who was also the defending champion and the Champion of Champions in the last edition, had to be content with the bronze medal, scoring 702.3. The Beijing Games bronze medallist Henri Hakkinen of Finland had to settle for the fourth place with a score of 701.9.
There were three shooters with 599, apart from Emmons with 598, who were breathing down Gagan’s neck in the final. But the Indian proved that he had nerves of steel as he handled the challenge with great poise. Interestingly, Emmons continued his dream run and emerged the Champion of Champions in rifle, in a mixed competition for men and women open to the medallists of the World Cup Final. He, thus, received a purse of 5000 euros.
Gagan thanked his mind trainer, Vaibhav Agashe, apart from acknowledging the support of Olympic Gold Quest and Air-India. He also expressed his gratitude to coaches Sunny Thomas and Laszlo Szucsak.
After Anjali Bhagwat, who had won both the World Cup Final gold and the Champion of Champions title, Gagan became the second Indian shooter to win the honour. He also joined double trap shooter, Ronjan Sodhi, as the only Indians to win the gold in a global competition with two world records. Ronjan had won the gold in the World Cup in Belgrade by equalling the world record of 147 out of 150 in the qualifying series and breaking the final world mark with 194.
Suma Shirur is the only other Indian shooter to still have a world record against her name. She had shot 400 out of 400 in women’s air rifle at the Asian Championship in 2004.
THE RESULTMen’s air rifle: 1. Gagan Narang 703.5 FWR (600 equalled WR); 2. Matthew Emmons (US) 702.5 (598); 3. Zhu Qinan (China) 702.3 (599).
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