Shreya Agrawal stood beaming and posing for the photographers at the 10m range of the Rifle Club in Khanpur, Ahmedabad. She had just clinched the silver medal, partnering her friend Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, in the mixed team event of the 10m air rifle discipline at the 36th National Games in Gujarat.
Among the crowd of officials, selfie hunters and other players waiting to congratulate her, Shreya would have missed the familiar face of her father, who passed away after contracting the virus during the second wave of COVID-19.
“Initially, my dad used to travel with me for all competitions. In 2021, I lost him to the coronavirus. Now, I am doing all of this for him. I have always been inspired by him, how hard he had been working to help me continue with the sport although people were like I should be studying at this age,” she said.
Shreya says her father had supported her even when she decided to skip her 12th standard examinations to participate in the Asian Airgun Championship in Taiwan in 2019. She had repaid the faith with three gold medals (10m air rifle junior, 10m air rifle junior team and 10m air rifle junior mixed team) coupled with a junior World Record score in the 10m air rifle team event and junior Asian record in 10m air rifle.
Now it’s mostly her coaches from Gagan Narang’s academy - Gun For Glory (GFG) – who travel with her during competitions. She has been with GFG since 2015 and her personal coach Nishant Nathwani, she admits, is now like her protective ‘elder brother’. When she goes on international tours and Nathwani isn’t able to come along, Shreya sends him her live locations whenever she books a taxi lest she gets into trouble.
“He looks after everything. I send him all my cab details when I book a late one. I also send him my live locations. So somehow, he is always watching over me. My family is convinced I am in good hands,” she says with a smile.
“If there is anything that she is not feeling sure-footed about, I’d have to do. Like booking tickets, taking some decisions for her like sending her to certain competitions, some money thing... all that I have to manage as well,” Nathwani adds.
Shreya’s shooting journey began when the last edition of the National Games was hosted by Kerala. Since then, the Jabalpur teen had always wanted to represent her State – Madhya Pradesh - in the multi-discipline competition.
“This was long due – my first Games medal. Finally, after a seven-year-long gap, we are having a National Games and I feel very happy. When I was in (Ryan International) school, we had gone for the national inter-school competition, where I saw a shooting range. Till then, there was no range that I knew of. It was then that I decided to join GFG. Their Jabalpur range was only a year old then and I was in ninth standard,” she says.
It was in fact her mentor Narang who made Shreya fall in love with the sport, after she read about him in her school textbook.
“There was a chapter in my English or Hindi book, which had a brief introduction on how Gagan sir did shooting and how he won a medal. I pondered then on how one gets to participate in the Olympics. It is such a privilege that he has been there throughout for me and the other shooters.”
During the Tokyo Olympics, Shreya had made the reserve squad. It was also the time she was still recovering from a condition in her right arm’s ulnar nerve and had recently lost her father. There were a lot of questions in her mind. And for one of those, she resorted to her favourite senior in the Indian shooting team, Anjum Moudgil, for answers during a group discussion among the rifle shooters. Anjum ended up teaching her about the importance of acceptance.
“She is the sweetest (Anjum). She said, ‘if you are able to accept victories, you should always be open to accept losses as well, so that it is easy to overcome them’.”
Shreya says, “COVID was not a good time for a lot of people and me. That was a very low time (sic). My personal side affected me a lot in the shooting arena. During Nationals (selection trials) also, I was very sceptical about whether I will be able to perform. But I was able to top the ranking. I have started accepting, as Anjum di said. So, it is still, on a ‘going on’ phase... it is a learning process.”
Nathwani apprises Sportstar of how mentally tough Shreya is. He said, “It was a difficult time to handle her. She was heartbroken obviously. And the frustrating part was she did not get help when she required it. It was no one’s fault. The healthcare system was down at that time... The dynamic between us changed. Although I was the coach, off-lane I had to handle a lot more than just being the coach. Then there was the role of the psychologist at GFG. At that point, Kirtika (Pandey) was helping her out to come to terms with the loss. She is a very strong girl, so within 15-20 days she was back on lane and training again.”
Shreya missed a World Championship seat by a mere 0.05 ranking points. She is back in the third spot after her performance in NGG 2022 but the selection process is already over. Nathwani says there is a lot of experimentation going on in the background, with Shreya getting her kit changed and weapon serviced.
With Anjum’s words in mind, Shreya would hope to keep up her brilliant scores.
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