On Saturday, World Cup gold medallist Apurvi Chandela broke the world record to bring India’s first gold medal at the ISSF World Cup 2019. The 26 years old shooter shot 252.9 in exciting 10m Women Air Rifle finale to bag the Gold on Day 1 of the tournament at Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range in New Delhi.

A historic accomplishment by a stellar athlete!

Congratulations to @apurvichandela for winning the Gold in the 10m Air Rifle event at the ISSF World Cup. Her success makes every Indian proud and motivates more youngsters to excel in various sports! pic.twitter.com/fVGS3Cnfyk

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 23, 2019

Talking about the competition with Anjum Moudgil, Elavenil Valarivan and Mehuli Ghosh in this event, Apurvi said, “All of them coming up is actually good for the sport. I needed to push myself further and I have been performing consistently since the last year”.

“I looked at it in a way that I get motivated, push myself harder, I can’t settle down at any score, there is no satisfaction that I think can take from it. That’s actually a good thing for me. It keeps me motivated.”

When asked about the 2018 World Cup final in Munich, Apurvi said, “In Munich World Cup, I was leading and I came fourth. I was just coming down and it was a freak shot, the trigger just got pressed, it wasn’t a malfunction or anything.

“But I am happy that I could overcome that and did not let that get into my way today. I actually beat my own self in a way,” she said about the outing in which a 5.9 dashed her hopes. To improve trigger control, Apurvi said she does a “lot of meditation and visualisation practises”.

“It’s a long process which I have been working on. It was just pressure handling. To get better, I had to push myself. Earlier, I used to take less time and shoot early, but now I take a little longer to settle down a bit.”

In finals on Saturday, talking about the last shots she said, “I was just trying to control my nerves, nerves do play a big role. I just asked myself to stay calm as it was a matter of few more shots.”

Her mother Bindu who represented Rajasthan in the basketball game travels with her for training as well as competitions, including abroad. Bindu said, “Being a sportsperson myself, I understand the situation better when I am around her. You know I never have high expectations and all”.

Talking more about the game and the audience, Apurvi said, “I wasn’t maybe in the centre but I do not usually plan my scoring like that. I think, at the start, my positioning was a little off. So, I tweaked my settings a bit. My aim was not to shoot a 10.1 in the first shot definitely but I am happy that I could build up and reach a world record,” said Apurvi.

“The last one month I am working really hard on finals and qualifications also. And even in January, I have gone abroad for open competitions. I won a gold there as well, so I took confidence and that competition helped me today in handling pressure.”

When asked about the noisy crowd, she said, “Actually the crowd was motivating me and I could hear ‘India, India’. It helped me in sticking to my technique and executing each shot the way I wanted to.

“The pressure was there definitely, I am happy I could control it and execute.”

She has placed herself in the 2020 Olympics and said, “When I got my quota also, the aim was not to get the quota only, it was just about following my technique and putting whatever I trained into use. I was focussed on every shot, keeping my calm.”

Published by Soniya Kaur on 25 Feb 2019