Asian Games 2018, Indian player profiles: Shotgun shooting

The 18th edition of Asian Games is set to begin in Jakarta and Palembang on August 18, with 572 Indian sportspersons in contention for medals. After a successful Commonwealth Games, in which India finished third on the table with 66 medals – 26 gold, 20 silver and 20 bronze – the expectations from the Indian contingent are high.

Out of the 572 Indian sportspersons in Indonesia, 28 are shooters. Here are the profiles of the 11 shotgun shooters in the squad.

Trap

Lakshay

Date of Birth: November 4, 1998

Event at Asian Games: Men’s trap, trap mixed team

Past performance (if any): N/A

Best performance so far: Bronze, mixed team at ISSF Junior Shotgun World Cup in 2017

Brief Description: Lakshay Sheroan is a promising, young trap shooter who has done well at the junior level internationally.

Born in Jind, Haryana, he started competing only in 2014 and has been consistently climbing the ranks in the last four years. He is coached by PS Sodhi. At the selection trils, he pipped former world champion Manavjit Sandhu and Olympian Kynan Chenai, to become the India No 1. He will represent India in both men’s and mixed team trap at the Asian Games.

The teenager was part of the bronze-medal winning team along with Vivaan Kapoor and Ali Aman Elahi at the ISSF Junior World Cup in Sydney, Australia earlier this year.

He was also the junior national trap champion in 2017, beating stiff competition at the 61st National Shooting Championship in Kerala.

His biggest win came at the ISSF Junior Shotgun World Cup in Porpetto, Italy, in August 2017 when he won the bronze in the mixed team trap competition with Manisha Keer. A month earlier, he had also won the silver in the Junior Men’s Trap at the 9th International Junior Shotgun Cup in Orimattila, Finland in July last year, along with the team bronze.

He finished 15th in the final standings in junior ISSF World Championship Shotgun in Moscow last year.

Manavjit Singh Sandhu

Date of Birth: November 3, 1976

Event at Asian Games: Men’s trap

Past performance (if any): Silver, 1998 Bangkok (Team)

Silver, 2002 Busan (Team)

Silver, 2006 Doha (Individual)

Silver, 2006 Doha (Team)

Bronze, 2010 Guangzhou (Team)

Best performance so far: Gold, ISSF World Championship in Zagreb in 2006

Gold, ISSF World Cup in 2010 and 2014

Gold, Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur in 1998 (Team)

Brief Description: Manavjit Singh Sandhu is a veteran trap shooter who has made his way back into the Indian Top 2 ahead of several other seasoned shooters. The 42-year-old is the reigning national champion after winning gold for the second straight year.

He also has gold medals at the ISSF World Cup and the Commonwealth Games and a prestigious gold at the World Shooting Championship. He became first Indian shooter to be crowned world champion when he won the Shooting World Championship in Zagreb back in 2006. He became the world No 1 soon after.

Twelve years later, Sandhu is still among the top trap shooters in India. He picked up the sport from his father Gurbir Singh Sandhu, who is an Olympian and Arjuna Award-winning shooter. Sandhu himself has represented India at the Olympics four times – 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 – but has never reached medal contention.

After the 2016 Rio Games, he hasn’t managed to achieve a lot on the international stage. However, he his national shooting championship gold meant he was still India’s top trap shooter heading into the Commonwealth Games, where he failed to qualify for the finals.

However, the veteran is a six-time Asian champion, who had also won an individual silver the Asian Games silver in 2006, apart from three team medals.

Shreyasi Singh

Date of Birth: August 29, 1991

Event at Asian Games: Women’s trap, Double trap, mixed team

Past performance (if any): Bronze in double trap team at the Asian Games, 2014 Incheon. Participated in both trap and double trap at 2010 and 2014 Asian Games.

Best performance so far: Gold, Double trap at Commonwealth Games in 2018,
Silver Double trap at Commonwealth Games in 2014

Brief Description: Shreyasi Singh, 26, is among the most successful trap shooters in India, with medals at both Commonwealth and Asian Games.

She comes from a family of shooting enthusiasts, with both grandfather Kumar Surendra Singh and father Digvijay Singh serving as presidents of the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI).

Shreyasi took up the sport as part of her grandfather Kumar’s wishes, who wanted someone in the family to excel at shooting. An arts graduate from Hansraj College, and a Master of Business Administration from Manav Rachna International University, the shooter has been trained by former Olympian Mansher Singh.

She represented India at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, but won her first CWG medal at the 2014 Games in Glasgow. She lost her father due to a brain haemorrhage during the 2010 Commonwealth Games, which had affected her performances for a few years.

But she overcame it all to make her way back into the India’s national team. She faced troubles with back pain in Glasgow but she bagged the silver despite the discomfort. In the same year, she won the team bronze medal at the Asian Games in Incheon along with Shagun Chowdhary and Varsha Varman.

She won a silver at the 2017 Commonwealth Championship and was crowned the national champion in 2017.

At the 2018 Commonwealth Games, she capped her biggest triumph yet when she held her nerve to clinch the women’s double trap gold in a shoot-off with Australia’s Emma Cox.

Seema Tomar

Date of Birth: July 3, 1982

Event at Asian Games: Women’s trap

Past performance (if any): Finished 17th in 2014 and 13th in 2010,

Best performance so far: Silver, ISSF World Cup in 2011

Brief Description: Seema Tomar is a veteran shotgun shooter who to date remains the only Indian woman to win a shotgun silver medal at an International Shooting Sport Federation World Cup. The 36-year-old achieved the milestone in 2010 when she won the medal in the trap event in Dorset in Great Britain, in what was her first World Cup final.

The shooter, who comes from Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh, has also won a gold medal at the Asian level. In 2014, she clinched the top spot at the 4th Asian Shotgun Championship in Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates. At the same event, she was part of the team that won gold, along with Shagun Chaudhary and Shreyasi Singh.

In 2016, she shot a personal best score of 74/75 in Women’s Trap to win silver in the 6th Asian Shotgun Championship in Abu Dhabi, along with a team gold. She followed that up by being crowned the national champion in trap.

Tomar in the a member of the Indian Army, joining them in 2004 to help with her shooting career.

Skeet

Sheeraz Sheikh

Date of Birth: August 1, 1989

Event at Asian Games: Men’s skeet

Past performance (if any): N/A

Best performance so far: Bronze, Asian Shotgun Championship in 2016 (Team)

Brief Description: Sheeraz Sheikh is the India No 1 in skeet shooting. The Meerut-based shooter was a budding cricketer in Uttar Pradesh before choosing shooting, a family sport in many ways. His father and grandfather are shooters, his brother Saif is a trap shooter and his cousin Saniya is an international shooter, who has represented India at the Commonwealth Games.

In 2017, he reached his first ISSF World Cup final, where he impressed by edging out veteran Jesper Hansen in Delhi. In 2016, he was part of the men’s team that won the bronze medal at the Asian Shotgun Championship in Abu Dhabi. He also reached the final of Asian Shooting Championship in 2017.

He currently trains under national coach Ennio Falco of Italy, who was the gold medallist at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Falco has given the shooter his vote of confidence when he picked him for the ISSF World Cup in Delhi even though he wasn’t the first choice.

Angad Vir Singh Bajwa

Date of Birth: November 29, 1995

Event at Asian Games: Men’s skeet

Past performance (if any): N/A

Best performance so far: Gold, Asian Junior Championships in Kuwait in 2015

Brief Description: Angad Vir Singh Bajwa is a young skeet shooter from Punjab who has impressed with his quick transition from the junior to the senior team.

The 22-year-old had moved to Canada and it was at the Canadian Nationals in 2014 that he got his first taste of big success. As a teenager in Vancouver, Bajwa beat the field with a score of 241/ 250, which was the highest score in Canada both in the Junior and Senior category. Before that, he had won all the Pre National events in 2012 in both Junior and senior categories.

He then moved to India and has since then climbed the ranks on the shooting circuit. At the Nationals that year, he shot a new national record in both the junior and the senior category with a score of 121/125.

The Punjab shooter was also the junior skeet national champion 2013, and has also won the Shotgun Masters championship and the first Beretta Gold Cup. In 2013, he won the team bronze at the Asian Shotgun Championship at Kazakhstan and a gold in 2014 at Asian Shotgun Championship at Al Ain. He scored 116 in the World Championships at Granada, Spain.

He had also won bronze in the mixed team skeet event of the International Shooting Sport Federation World Cup in New Delhi in 2017. At the shotgun nationals that year, he was involved in a marathon shoot-off with Mairaj Ahamd Khan, before finishing with the silver.

Ganemat Sekhon

Date of Birth: November 29, 2000

Event at Asian Games: Men’s skeet

Past performance (if any): N/A

Best performance so far: Bronze, ISSF Junior World Cup, 2018

Brief Description: The teenaged shotgun shooter has slowly been climbing the ranks in the last couple of years. Her best performance so far came in March earlier this year when she won the bronze medal of in the skeet at the ISSF Junior World Cup in Sydney. She comes from Punjab and trains under Parmpal Singh.

She took to shooting only three years back in 2015 after she went to a shooting range with one of her cousins. Her great-grandfather Captain Chattar Singh has taken part in royal shooting competitions, while her father Mohinderpal Singh and cousin Indreshwar Singh have also competed at national level in India, according to her profile on the Asian Games website.

In 2017, she narrowly missed becoming the national champion, finishing with a silver medal at the 61st national shotgun championship. She had won the national silver in 2016 as well.

Rashmi Rathore

Date of Birth: November 10, 1982

Event at Asian Games: Women’s skeet

Past performance (if any): Finished 20th in the skeet event at the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon

Best performance so far: Gold, Asian Shotgun Championships in Astana in 2017 (Mixed team)

Brief Description: The 35-year-old skeet shooter is a veteran who had represented India at the international level for a decade now. She has been a successful shooter at the national level, but wasn’t able to perform internationally at the same level.

She won her first international medal in 2017, when she struck gold at the 7th Asian Shotgun Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan in the skeet mixed team event with Mairaj Ahmad Khan. She also won silver along with compatriots Maheshwari Chauhan and Saniya Sheikh in the team event.

Coming from an Indian Army background, she started shooting at age eight in her family’s farm in Secunderabad where she was given an air gun by her grandfather.

Rathore has also balanced her career with shooting, completing a course in Accounting and Finance from The Hague University of Applied Sciences in Netherlands. She is also a four-time National champion in skeet.

A month before her first international medal, she lost her father Captain YS Rathore and her training for the event was affected. But she overcame that to win two medals.

Double Trap

Ankur Mittal

Date of Birth: March 30, 1992

Event at Asian Games: Men’s double trap

Past performance (if any): N/A

Best performance so far: Gold, ISSF World Cup in 2017

Brief Description: For Ankur Mittal, trap shooting is his family legacy. The double trap shooter picked up trap following in the footsteps of his father, Ashok, and elder brother Ajay, who are both shotgun shooters. While Ajay has won two junior Asian golds, his father still participates in the nationals. Mittal, a junior national champion in trap, however became the brightest star in the family with his exploits in double trap.

The year 2017 was a breakthrough one for him. He won a silver in the first World Cup he played, in Delhi, and then went on to do one better winning the gold at the ISSF World Cup in Acapulco in Mexico. After the back-to-back World Cup medals, he bagged gold medals at the Asian Championships and Commonwealth Championships. He then topped it with a silver at the ISSF World Shotgun Championship and became the world No 1 in double trap.

At the 2018 Commonwealth Games, he narrowly missed the gold medal after leading the pack throughout the final. The 26-year-old faltered on three shots during the elimination round to decide the third spot and finished with bronze.

The 2018 Asian Games will be Mittal’s last competition in double trap as the event was discontinued as an Olympic discipline last year. He will switch to trap after that in hope of a 2020 Tokyo Games berth.

Shardul Vihan

Date of Birth: January 1, 2003

Event at Asian Games: Men’s double trap

Past performance (if any): N/A

Best performance so far: Gold, ISSF World Shotgun Championship in 2017 (Junior Team)
Gold, International Junior Grand Prix, Suhl in 2017

Brief Description: Shardul Vihan is a 15-year-old shooter who has put in some superb numbers in the last year to make the national team.

The teenager from Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, hit the headlines when he shot his way to four gold medals in a single day at the 61st National Shooting Championship in 2017. On the day, he bagged the gold in both the senior and junior men’s double trap individual and team event. In the men’s seniors, he got the better of world number one double trap shooter Ankur Mittal.

He is coached by former Asian Championship double gold medallist Anwer Sultan, after starting to compete in 2015.

In 2017, he was part of the Indian team that won the gold medal junior men’s double trap event at the ISSF World Shotgun Championship in Moscow. In the individual event, he finished sixth. He also won the gold in the International Junior Grand Prix, Suhl, Germany.

Varsha Varman

Date of Birth: June 1, 1994

Event at Asian Games: Women’s double trap

Past performance (if any): Bronze, double trap team in 2014

Best performance so far: Silver, Asian Shooting Championship (Junior)

Brief Description: Varsha Varman is an experienced double trap shooter who already has a medal at the Asian Games to her name, where she was part of the team that won bronze at Incheon 2014. The Madhya Pradesh shotgun shooter is a former national junior shooting champion in trap and came second in double trap at the nationals in 2017.

She is a student at the Harvard University in United States of America, and is known for balancing her shooting career with academics. In 2012, she had claimed the silver in juniors at the Asian Shooting Championship held in Doha. In the same year, she topped the All India Senior School Certificate Examination Class XII boards in Madhya Pradesh.

Her father is in the Indian Forest Services and it was her father and grandfather who inspired her to take up the sport.

She had earlier pursued a law degree at the University of Warwick in UK, but moved to Harvard to be able to focus more on shooting. She had represented India the 2014 Commonwealth Games, where she finished fifth. She then took an international break to finish her studies. Her first international competition after four years was the 2018 Commonwealth Games where she narrowly missed the podium, finishing fourth.

Note: Shreyasi Singh will also be competing in the double trap category.