Eighteen days of practice. That's all the time Adriyan Karmakar got to prepare for his event of choice, the 50m rifle boys three positions, in which athletes shoot over a distance of 50 meters in kneeling, prone and standing positions.
But that proved enough to secure the resident of Rishi Eco View, near Eco Park, a gold medal on his maiden appearance at the Khelo India Youth Games that took place on February 5 in Bhopal. "Actually we do not have a 50m range in Kolkata. The one at North Calcutta Rifle Club is unusable. A two-lane temporary 50m range set up recently beside a football field in Barasat lacks electronic target. And all the ones at my father's shooting academy are 10m. So I had little option but to travel to Delhi," said the 17-year-old son of Olympian Joydeep Karmakar, who is now the chief coach of the Indian national rifle shooting team.
Adriyan practised at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range in Tughlakabad, by himself for the first and last few days and under his father's coaching once he flew to Delhi till the national camp started. "I was focusing on building my position and my basic foundation, and not so much on score."
At the Bhopal Games, Adriyan topped in both the qualification round, with a personal best of 579 out of 600, and the gold medal match by a margin of 16-12.
Father Joydeep tweeted the result from the national camp in Delhi. "But I did not even get to speak to him immediately afterwards. It was our state manager who kept him informed. After the event, I was filling up the sponsorship form when journalists came to meet me. Then I was whisked away to the podium, which was quite some distance away. I could not even pack my things properly. Thank god, nothing got stolen," he laughs.
Father Joydeep was especially proud as Adriyan had shifted to this event barely 10 months back. "Before that I was playing in the 10m air rifle event. But I decided to shift to 50m despite the problem with practice venue." Competition in India is cut-throat in 10m air rifle and his father's event, 50m prone, in which he had came fourth at the 2012 London Games, is no longer an Olympic event.
Adriyan with father Joydeep Karmakar
This is the fourth tournament that Adriyan was competing in, after state, east zone and the nationals since last August. "In the nationals, I qualified for the finals. But I had a mishap with my shooting gear. As it is, I do not own a full set of equipment yet. I had just one sighter in place of three, which made me lose a lot of time before every shot. So there was a situation when I had to take a shot in the prone position almost blindly, without knowing where the shot would go." One below-9 score derailed his chances of podium finish but he had still come fourth, which earned him the nod for the Khelo India Youth Games, where the top 12 players in the age group get to compete.
Acing a contest at short notice is not alien to him ever since he has shifted to 50m. "I had practised for about two weeks before the Nationals, for the trials I had five days. This 18-day session was the longest training I got," smiles the boy, who grew up fiddling with his father's gun and won his first shooting medal, a gold, at the age of seven with his air gun.
On his return from Bhopal, he was welcomed at the Howrah station by members of his father's academy. Though Joydeep is still away with the national team, there has been a mini celebration at home with stepmother Radhika winning gold in the 10m air rifle masters in the West Bengal Rifle Association President's Cup. "Ma hardly gets time to practise. It was Monojit (Karmakar) sir, a coach in our academy, who registered her name without asking her. She picked up a rifle after almost a year and practised for barely three or four days," he laughs.
For now, the bullseye for the Class XI student of The Newtown School is the commerce syllabus. "Our annual exams are starting on February 24. I have not been in touch with academics. My teachers are very helpful. I travel so much but they try to keep me in the loop. Let's hope for the best," he signs off.