The progress of a sport can be seen clearly not when we look at the scores or the timings but when we look at the rankings, the world of a sportsperson, the top 100 or so players and where they stand on the world stage tells a story, and when we see the rankings over a period of 10 years or more, the story of a nation’s progress becomes clearer than ever before.
Indian Shooting is perhaps the best example of how India has quietly but steadily transformed itself into a global force, and nowhere is this more visible than in the comparison between the 2015 and 2025 year-end world rankings.
So if we compare the Indian rankings of the 2015 year end world ranking in shooting with the 2025 shooting world ranking we would see something like this.
In 2015, the top-10 Indian ranked shooters on the world stage included Gagan Narang in 50m prone at eighth, Jitu Rai in 50m pistol at seventh, Jitu Rai again in 10m air pistol at seventh, Gurpreet in 25m rapid pistol at tenth, Mairaj Khan in skeet at tenth, Mohd Asab in double trap at seventh, Manavjit Singh in trap at eighth and Apoorva Chandela in 10m air rifle at seventh.
In the women’s events, Elavenil Valarivan was ranked fifth in 10m air rifle, Sajjanar Meghana was tenth in the same event, Sift Kaur was fourth in 3-position rifle, Suruchi was second in 10m air pistol, Manu Bhaker was seventh in 10m air pistol and also fifth in 25m air pistol, while Esha Singh was ninth in 10m air pistol and sixth in 25m air pistol.
By contrast, the 2025 top-10 rankings show a very different picture. In 10m air rifle, Arjun Babuta is ranked seventh while Rudrankksh is tenth. In 3-position rifle, Aishwary Tomar stands third and Neeraj Kumar is also in the top group. In 10m air pistol, Varun Tomar and Samrat Rana are both inside the top ten, with Samrat Rana sixth. In 25m rapid pistol, Anish is ranked fourth. In shotgun, Zoravar Sandhu is fourth in trap.
On the women’s side, Elavenil Valarivan remains among the world’s best in 10m air rifle, Suruchi continues to dominate in 10m air pistol, Manu Bhaker remains in the top ten in both 10m and 25m air pistol, and Esha Singh is still a top-10 presence in pistol.
The 2015 rankings tell of a sport in which India was strong but nothing really outstanding, with eight Indian sportspersons in the top ten. And if we divide them we can see that there were four pistol shooters, one rifle shooter the great Gagan Narang and three trap shooters, again some of the greats of Indian trap shooting like Manavjit Singh, Mairaj Khan and Mohd Asab. It was a respectable spread, but it was also narrow, built around a handful of experienced names and traditional strongholds.
If we look at the rankings in 2025, the first huge improvement which is very obvious is the number of women shooters in the top ten. From just one in 2015 to eight shooters in the top ten in 2025, that is huge, a fantastic improvement. Indian women have not just arrived on the world stage; they are now defining it, particularly in the pistol and air-rifle disciplines.
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Now in rifle there is again great improvement in the time period, from just one shooter to six shooters in the top ten. Pistol also has risen from just four to seven. It is only in shotgun that there is not just no improvement but an actual fall in the number of shooters in the top ten, from three to just one.
But that blip aside, the improvement is fantastic. India is the country which has the second highest number of shooters in the top ten with 16 shooters in the top ten. In pistol and rifle, which number eight events excluding the pairs, we have 15 shooters, which is an amazing average of almost two shooters in the top ten in every event.
The traditional strength of Indian shooters in 2015 was in the 10m events, but now the strength has extended across every event in pistol and rifle. Another major change is the age profile of our shooters. In 2015 most of the shooters were above 25 and many were in their 30s and 40s. Now the median age is well before 25.
This is a sign of large cohorts of youngsters entering the sport in India and a broadening of the base numbers of shooters.
These ten years have seen an explosive growth for India in an Olympic sport the likes of which we have not seen in any other Olympic sport. Shooting is a sport in which India is becoming a dominant power, and the numbers tell the tale.
