Shweta Chaudhary sets ball rolling

On Saturday, moments after the 28-year-old won India’s first medal at the Incheon Asian Games, Jitu Rai continued his sensational form by claiming India’s first gold medal, again threatening to eclipse Shweta’s gutsy effort in the 10m air pistol event.

This time, though, her feat wouldn’t go unnoticed. For, she had not just defied odds and expectations by winning the bronze medal in the 10m air pistol but she also exhibited tremendous mental strength and courage in doing so.

Shweta reached Incheon just a couple of days ago, completing a long journey that began from Granada in Spain via Delhi. Fatigued and jet-lagged, she arrived here only to find out that her pistol was held up by the Korean customs as the number sent to them from India did not match with that on the weapon. The back and shoulder injury she had been nursing complicated things further.

She had a spare pistol, but she hadn’t used that for considerable period and to shoot with it on competition day would have been suicidal.
She pestered and haggled with the Korean officials. But they wouldn’t budge. “After three days of talking with the Korean customs people my weapon was finally delivered to me at 8am today,” she said. But that would be too late. Her event started at the same time, so she decided to fire with the spare weapon. “Both of them are of the same make but it plays on your mind if you are shooting with a pistol that you haven’t used for some time,” Shweta adds.

But if there was any distractions that put her off, Shweta did well to conceal them. There were moments during the competition when one thought she’d blown away her chances of a podium finish. Three moments, to be precise.

The 7.7 point shot in third series first threatened to derail her challenge. Then, closer to deciding shots, she shot an 8.4 that forced a shoot-off with China’s Guo Wenjun which she survived, and an 8.6.

“Each time, I thought I was gone,” she said of the three shots. “But I just decided to hang on and didn’t dwell over it much. I don’t know how I actually managed to win a medal despite those three shots but I am glad I did.”

During her early years, she was trained by her father Ramesh, himself a shooting coach. Post-marriage, her husband Prashant has taken over the responsibility. “Having him around makes things easier. It keeps me in a good mental space,” Shweta said.

For someone who won her first senior national-level medal aged just 13, Shweta is quite a late-bloomer. Her fickle performances at the national as well as international level resulted in her slipping under the radar in the wake of the rise of new, young shooters.

But over the last 12 months, she has emerged as one of the most consistent shooters nationally, constantly recording high scores. And by out-classing Heena Sidhu and prodigy Malaika Goel she finally seems to have stepped out of the shadows of her peers.