Young Samrat Rana Shoots to Glory, Becomes World Champion in 10m Air Pistol

Young Samrat Rana, a 20-year-old from an agricultural family in Karnal, playing in only his second senior international, stunned the shooting world by being crowned world champion in the men’s 10m air pistol Olympic event, outgunning some legends of the sport.

Late on Monday (Nov 10) evening at the Olympic Shooting range in Cairo, Varun Tomar added the icing to India’s triumph with a bronze to make it a historic first double podium for India in any Olympic discipline at an International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championship.

Rana shot 243.7 in the 24-shot final, to leave Hu Kai of China 0.4 behind in silver medal position. Rana is a third-year student at Kurukshetra University. His senior teammate Tomar had earlier bowed out after the 22nd shot, settling for bronze with his score reading 221.7.

Both Indians began the final missing out on the 10-ring (Tomar in the 8s), but recovered brilliantly, and as the lead kept changing in a tense final, stuck to their job with aplomb to pull off a dream result for the country.

The champion’s touch came in the last shot, when Rana, 0.6 ahead, faced a 10.8 by Hu and needed a minimum of 10.3 to win. He shot a clutch 10.6 to complete a performance of a lifetime.

Among those who fell by the wayside amidst Rana and Tomar’s blitz, were former Olympic and World champion and German Pistol legend Christian Reitz, three-time Olympian, former double world champion and Youth Olympic champion Pavlo Korostylov of Ukraine, former world mixed team pistol world champion Richard Zechmeister of Austria and Paris Olympics silver medalist Federico Maldini of Italy.

Earlier, the duo did give an inkling of things to come, when they finished 1-2 after the 60-shot 120-strong qualification round to make the top eight finals cut. Both shot 586, with Rana pipping Tomar on more inner 10s.

The Indian duo also picked up the team gold in the event, teaming up with Shravan Kumar for a combined total of 1754.

Italy won silver and Germany bronze.

With the air pistol women also winning a team silver, India added four medals to their kitty on the day, to end second on the leaderboard behind China with three medals of each colour. China has six gold and a total of 12 medals.

In the individual women’s air pistol, the second final of the day, Esha Singh and Manu Bhaker finished sixth and seventh respectively. They shot 583 and 580 to to finish fourth and sixth in qualification. Suruchi shot 577 to end her first world championship in 14th spot.

With a star-studded field and with what had earlier happened in the women’s final, one could probably excuse the Indians for what seemed to be a nervous start.

However, to their credit, both settled down and after the first series of five shots, Rana was in second behind Hu, while Tomar was a close fifth. After the second series, Rana had taken over the lead with Tomar in third.

From then on, as one heavyweight after the other kept falling, the lead rotated between Rana, Hu and Tomar, with Rana garnering the lion’s share of it.

Besides the last shot, two other shots from the champion, the 20th and 22nd, two perfect 10.9s at the most critical stages, defined the progress Indian shooting has achieved in recent years, especially on the mental side of things.