Indian shooting has undergone one of the most dramatic turnarounds in modern Indian sport.
Between 2016 and 2020, the country’s shooting programme was regarded as a paradox immense talent, consistent World Cup successes, but complete failure where it mattered most: the Olympic Games.
Yet, between 2022 and 2025, India not only rebuilt its competitive structure but emerged as one of the world’s most consistent medal-winning nations across World Championships and the Paris 2024 Olympics. This decade-long shift from systemic underperformance to sustained global success reflects a combination of athlete development, discipline-specific depth, and structural reform.
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Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 marked the lowest point in India’s Olympic shooting history. Despite sending strong contingents, the nation finished both Games without a single medal. This failure exposed deep systemic weaknesses: poor final-stage performance, inadequate mental conditioning, and a disconnect between domestic preparation and Olympic-level pressure.
Indian shooters often topped qualification rounds but faltered under elimination pressure, revealing a psychological gap rather than a technical one. These consecutive failures became the turning point for the sport’s future.
The First Signs of Renewal: Changwon 2018
The 2018 ISSF World Championships in Changwon provided the earliest sign that India could rebuild. Anjum Moudgil won a silver medal in an Olympic event, proving that Indian shooters could still find podium finishes at senior world events. It also secured an Olympic quota early in the Tokyo cycle, offering validation that the programme had the raw potential to compete and win at the highest level. This medal marked the beginning of India’s slow but steady transition from rebuilding to rising.
The true turnaround came between 2022 and 2023. At the 2022 World Championships in Cairo/Osijek, India secured a major breakthrough as Rudrankksh Patil won gold in the Men’s 10m Air Rifle the nation’s first individual Olympic-event world title of the period. His clinical performance in the final signalled a new era where Indian shooters could withstand pressure, not just qualify strongly.
Momentum accelerated at the 2023 World Championships in Baku, where India won three medals one gold and two bronze. Significantly, India recorded podium finishes across three different Olympic disciplines:
- 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team (gold)
- Women’s 10m Air Rifle (bronze)
- Men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions (bronze)
This diversification confirmed that India was no longer dependent on a single event or athlete. The rise of the technically demanding 50m Rifle 3 Positions category demonstrated that India’s long-term investment in complex rifle disciplines was beginning to pay dividends.
Paris 2024: The Breakthrough India Needed
The Paris 2024 Olympics marked the definitive shift from promise to delivery. India won three bronze medals, ending a 12-year Olympic drought in shooting. Even more importantly, the medals came in three separate events:
• Manu Bhaker: Women’s 10m Air Pistol
• Manu Bhaker / Sarabjot Singh: 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team
• Swapnil Kusale: Men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions
Manu Bhaker etched her name into history by becoming the first Indian to win two medals in a single Olympics since independence. India’s Mixed Team bronze was also its first-ever Olympic team shooting medal. Meanwhile, Kusale’s medal confirmed India’s rising strength in the physically and mentally taxing 50m Rifle 3 Positions event. Paris proved that Indian shooting had not only matured but developed the resilience needed to convert world-level form into Olympic success.
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If Paris showed resilience, the 2025 World Championships demonstrated dominance. India won a record eight medals in Olympic events 1 gold, 3 silver, and 4 bronze finishing third behind traditional powerhouses China and Korea. In the Rifle/Pistol events alone, India secured seven medals. The headline performance belonged to Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, who equalled the world record (597) in 50m Rifle 3 Positions qualification and missed gold in the final by just 0.2 points a margin that underscores India’s world-class technical level and the remaining mental-execution gap.
The emergence of young talents like Samrat Rana, who paired with Esha Singh for mixed-team silver, validated India’s development pipeline. These athletes rising from junior to senior ranks shows that India now has depth across multiple Olympic events, not just isolated stars.
The decade-long transformation has delivered medals, depth, and global respect. But to challenge China and Korea for Olympic golds, India must now focus on:
- High-pressure final-round execution, especially in 10m Air events.
- Specialised mental-conditioning programmes tailored to Olympic final formats.
- Enhanced support in 50m Rifle 3P and 25m Pistol, where podium potential is rising rapidly.
- International training bases to familiarise shooters with diverse range conditions.
- Advanced analytics, tracking precision, cognitive load, and final-shot performance.
From the disappointments of 2016 and 2020 to the historic achievements of Paris 2024 and the record-setting 2025 World Championships, Indian shooting has completed a remarkable competitive transformation. The next frontier Olympic gold in LA28 now feels not aspirational but achievable. The foundation has been laid; the next three years will determine whether India can complete its rise to the top of the shooting world.
