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The success story continues
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Setting his sights on the 50-m 3-position event, Gagan Narang is on his mark
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Gagan Narang
If you thought Gagan Narang’s grip on his 10-metre air rifle prowess has slipped, you could be way off target. The Olympian shooter from Hyderabad and quadruple Commonwealth gold medallist and the state’s only Arjuna Awardee in shooting h
as turned his sights on the 50-metre three-position and 50-m prone events as well.
Incidentally Gagan won his first medal ever, a bronze, in the all India G.V. Mavlankar championships in the 50-m three-position event in Chennai in 2000. The prohibitive costs of pursuing this event led him to take up the 10-m air rifle challenge, which brought him and the country many international accolades. Gagan retraced his steps to the 50-m 3P, as it’s popularly known in shooting circles, shortly before the 2006 Commonwealth Games at Melbourne, with barely six months of practice.
That proved to be a master-stroke. Two of his four gold medals Down Under on that occasion, were in the 3P, one of them establishing a Games record. His ample talents had made him a multi-event crackshot, in that he had struck gold in his pet 10 metre air rifle and then come out trumps in an alternate event as well. That this was no flash in the pan became evident when he won the bronze in the Doha Asian Games, later in the year.
On home turf too, Gagan had proved himself in the National championships at Hyderabad in 2005, when he upstaged reigning champion Sanjeev Rajput of Indian Navy for the 3P gold. His foray into the 50 m prone event also has brought him a measure of success. During the World Cup in Milan, Italy last year, Gagan wasn’t on the podium, but equalled the national record of 595/600 and obtained the Minimum Qualification Score (MQS) for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Till the year-end Gagan will go all out to make a mark in the 3 P and prone events, setting aside 2008 for the air rifle mainly, as he makes another assault for gold in the Beijing Olympic Games in August. By branching out into these events in addition to his favoured 10m air rifle, the Hyderabad marksman has trebled the prospects of getting an Olympic medal in the Chinese capital.
The biggest obstacle before Gagan and others like him with abundant talent, is the lack of corporate sponsorship, denying them access to the latest trends in the world of shooting.
A. JOSEPH ANTONY
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