The journeyman, who has always remained in contention but never really made it, finds the podium on the biggest stage. Shooter Swapnil Kusale, 28, gave India its third bronze in the Paris Olympic Games, in the 50 metre rifle 3 position.
India never gave importance to this category, but after Kusale changed the script at the Chateauroux shooting range on Thursday, there will be renewed interest.
He shot an aggregate of 451.4 in the eight-shooter final after being placed sixth at
one stage. China’s Liu Yukun won the gold while Ukraine’s Serhiy Kulish took home
the silver.
World record holder Liu had a score of 463.6, while Kulish aggregated 461.3. For the first time, India have three medals to boast of in a single event. Manu Bhaker (10 metre pistol) and Manu and Sarabjot Singh (mixed 10 metre pistol) are the other medal winners.
The 3P — as three position is known — is termed as the marathon of shooting. In the final, a shooter has to hit 15 shots each in kneeling, prone and standing positions.
Each series has its challenges, like switching from prone to standing can disturb a shooter’s rhythm because of the change in gravitational force. It takes time to get into the right body balance.
Like reigning world No. 1 Jiri Privratsky of Czech Republic, whose score went south in the standing series. Kusale’s first shot also was a poor 9.6, but he recovered well to hit a series of 10-plus scores.
By his admission, Kusale had butterflies in his stomach in the morning. “I was empty stomach. Just a cup of black tea,” Kusale said at the mixed zone. “It helped.”
Kusale had qualified for the title round in seventh spot with a score of 590 after 60 shots. He made a memorable comeback on Thursday, going into the final standing position in fifth spot, a full point behind the medal bracket. Then he had 101.5 after his first 10 shots in the position.
He had a slow start, finding himself in seventh position after the first kneeling position. He had a much-improved prone position which took him up to fifth but he still had a lot to do.
Kusale laid down the marker with a solid 51.1 after the first series of five single shots, the second-best and just 0.2 below Liu’s effort. That set the tone and he continued to shoot steadily till the medal was guaranteed after the 43rd shot when Privratsky bowed out in fourth.
There was a difference of 0.6 between Kulish and him going into the 44th but it turned out to be too much to cover. Did the initial scores make him nervous? “No. I stayed calm. To be honest, I did not see the scoreboard. It was my years of hard work and that is what I kept in mind while shooting. I was listening to the announcements of scores but was ignoring it. I just wanted the Indian supporters to keep cheering for me. That noise kept me going.”
Kusale was promoted to OSD, Sports Cell, in Mumbai, from ticket collector by Central Railway after he won bronze on Thursday.
His father and brother are teachers in a district school and mother is the sarpanch of Kambalwadi village near Kolhapur in Maharashtra.
“I haven’t spoken to her yet”, he said when it was still morning in Paris. Kusale, who earned the Olympic quota at the 2022 World Championship in Cairo, mentioned his coach Deepali Deshpande’s role in this success.
“Words cannot describe what she has done for me. She is my second mother.”
A gold medal winner in the Hangzhou Asian Games in the team event, along with Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar and Akhil Sheoran, Kusale finished fourth behind Sheoran at the World Championship in Baku. His form improved by leaps and bounds in the last year. “I never live in the past. It does not help. I learnt from my mistakes and tried to correct it here. Thankfully everything fell into place.”
In a squad packed with youngsters on debut here or senior pros in their second Olympics, Kusale, who started his shooting career in 2012, is a late bloomer.
For example, in the women’s 50 metre 3P rifle event in Paris, Anjum Moudgil is in her second Olympic Games while Sift Kaur Samra is just 22 and a Games debutant. That both failed to qualify hours after Kusale’s event — finishing 18th and 31st respectively — is another story. “Maybe I was not strong mentally in the early days. Was not good enough,” Kusale was frank.
He credited Thomas Farnik, the Austrian rifle coach who came on board after the Tokyo debacle, for working on his mental make up. “His contribution is immense.”
Are there any special ritual he follows the day before a final? “I chant. That’s it. Bhagwan toh ek hi hai (There is one God for everyone). People find ways to remember him.”
