Headed in right direction: Sheoran
Young shooter Akhil Sheoran made a sparkling senior debut, picking up the gold in the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions at the ISSF World Cup in Guadalajara, Mexico, last week.
Sheoran along with Shahzar Rizvi, Manu Bhaker, Mehuli Ghosh and Anjum Moudgil helped India finish on top of the medal standings, with all of them returning home with golds. Excerpts from an interview to the National Rifle Association of India:
On the World Cup gold and
whether he expected it: I was preparing for this medal and many more like this for a long time. I was disappointed to miss out on the 2016 Rio berth narrowly, so this certainly takes care of that a little bit. Now that this has happened, it has shown me that I am working in the right direction and will continue to do so.
On his performance: Actually, I didn’t start that good. I was fifth after one series. Then I told myself that I have to do my job, focus on shooting and forget about the medal. It will come if I perform well. And then I shot a good series and started coming up and once in my favourite standing position, I was sure that I will now take this medal.
On his aim: My next target is to perform better than this in next World Cups and not repeat the mistakes. I want to become consistent. My next focus now is the World University Shooting Championship in Malaysia where I want to defend my title.
On his preparation: I planned well to make sure there should be no incidents and my coach also reminded me to check everything before, so that I was ready. My foreign coach Oleg was there to help me.
On the conditions: It was quite difficult as the final range was too windy. So on one hand, the wind was blowing from the back and pushing the body making it hard to stop my rifle at the right place. So you have to wait till the wind stops and then release the shot. And then there was the pressure to win. But my colleague Anjum Moudgil, who took a silver in the same conditions, shared some experience and that helped.
On his idols: I started shooting after I saw the celebration of Abhinav Bindra’s Olympic gold medal in 2008 and I too dreamt of the same. I also want to make the country proud. Then Gagan Narang clinched bronze in the 2012 London Olympics.
I got selected for my first international in December, 2012. Both these shooting legends have played an important role in motivating me.