Since the National Championships in December 2024 at the Karni Singh Ranges here, her pistol hasn’t stopped firing, until this week at the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya. New Delhi: The last two seasons have been nothing less than spectacular for Suruchi Singh.
At the Aichi Prefecture General Shooting Gallery on Friday, they were on target to bag the first gold medal from shooting, and that too with a Games record score of 587. I shot 20 less than my average scores. Because of injury, i had one more chance to bag the elusive medal,” said Kamaljeet, who has lost almost a year.
It was tough,” said Suruchi, relieved after the gold medal. He asked us to just take the match out of our memory and hit the reset button,” she said. “Sir ( Samaresh) told me there was a change in the 10m mixed team event and that I would play in place of Kedarling.
She has emerged as the biggest talent in Indian shooting in recent times, sweeping up gold medals at the ISSF World Cups, including back-to-back air pistol titles at the prestigious Munich World Cup beating world class shooters from China, South Korea, among others. “My score in individual competition was so bad that I didn’t know what had happened– didn’t expect at all. I don’t even remember when I shot so badly in my competitive career. “But it was good guidance from our coach Samaresh (Jung) sir that we were able to comeback. It was then he got the news that since he finished 9th in the individual events — the best among three pistol shooters, he would get to compete in the mixed team event. It was like a second life for me and I thanked God.
On Wednesday, however, Suruchi, as part of India’s star-studded 10m women’s air pistol team that also included Manu Bhaker and Esha Singh, shot 568 points in qualification and finished 15th. Just 20-years old and having gone to the Asian Games with huge expectations, such a performance can be devastating. To make matters worse, the men and women pistol teams drew a blank in individual and team events, quite a turnaround from the 2023 Asian Games when India bagged four medals, including two gold in the pistol events.
“When my match ended, I felt as if everything was over for me,” Suruchi said. She hasn’t shot this low in two years and it not only put her out of the individual final but dealt a big blow to her confidence. That was the frightening space she was in, with the mixed team event coming up in two days. Only Manu Bhaker made it to the final, finishing fifth. There was one last chance of redemption and that was the mixed pistol team discipline. The onus was on Suruchi and Kamaljeet, who replaced Kedarling Balakrishna Uchaganve, to make amends.
