The Hindu : Sport / Shooting : Manavjit takes to stardom with elan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 04, 2006

Sport

Sport - Shooting

Manavjit takes to stardom with elan

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: It was a rare experience for Manavjit Singh Sandhu to keep smiling non-stop for nearly 10 minutes as photographers crowded around him and kept calling his name to look at their lens. The World champion in trap shooting looked unruffled and handled them with poise.

"To be a champion you need a lot of financial backing so that you compete with the very best. I'm grateful to my sponsors for their backing," he said.

"The World championship was amazing. It was great to see the Indian flag rise, and an amazing feeling to hear the national anthem," he revealed at a felicitation event organised by JCT managing director Samir Thapar.

Thapar, who had assembled a team of sponsors to support Manavjit less than a year ago, said that he had known the shooter as a kid and was sure that he had the ability to become the best in the world.

"He has cornered glory much earlier than we had expected. We will back him all the way to the Beijing Olympics," Thapar added.

Praise for coach

Manavjit said that he was happy to be training regularly in Italy. He also revealed that his coach Marcello Dradi had brought about the technical fine-tuning in a smooth fashion without resorting to any abrupt change.

"I had made the finals of all the competitions in the last 18 months, but still we skipped the World Cup at Suhl to avoid becoming stale," he said.

Asked whether he felt lucky to win the World championship gold with a score of 143 while his best stood at 145, he said: "I was lucky. Period. Well, considering the conditions and the intense competition, 143 was respectable score and deserved the World championship gold."

Emphasising that a lot depended on physical fitness, as much as mental toughness, he said that the trap event was increasingly becoming a young man's sport and he was pleased to have both experience and age on his side.

Along with Abhinav Bindra, Manavjit will be felicitated on Aug. 6 by the Punjab government.

They will be presented with Rs. 21 lakh each.

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