Shooting Sport is growing in India!

“Do you consider shooting a popular sport?” If someone had asked me this question about 10 years ago my answer would have been different than what it is today. Shooting sport is growing in India. Our beloved sport hit the fast track to popularity a couple of years ago and now there is no stopping it. With the increase in media coverage shooting has now become a highly talked about sport all across the nation. Our numbers have increased in every aspect, be it the number of participants at competitions, international medals or national and international record-breaking scores by Indian shooters. For example, in the National Championships Games the number of participants have gone up 5-6 times across shooting categories in just four years, i.e. from 2015-2019.

Taking this further it would mean that shooters participating at state and district levels would have been more than that at nationals. Furthermore, as of March 2020 there are 9 shooters from India who hold world ranks between 1-10. Amazing isn’t it.

There are many ways of looking at the growth of shooting in our nation. We’ve already talked about the numeric increase. Now let’s move on to another big change in the field. We have transitioned from late specialization to early specialization. By this I mean to say that we now see shooters reaching their peaks in their teens. So now we see that scores go up and the age comes down. The average age of the top shooters of our country has decreased drastically. Abhinav Bindra was 25 when he won his Olympic Gold in 2008 and Elavenil Valarivan ,who is currently World No.1, is just 20 years old. I guess it really is true, “Big things come in small packages”. These are just two significant ways in which shooting has evolved in India. We are coming up with stories of shooters so that you come to know about more and get inspired. So, let us realize our potential as a country and rise and shine brighter as we move forward.