FOR GOLD’s SAKE

Rohit Mahajan 

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Sports Editor 

Two days ago, Heena Sidhu and Ronak Pandit, wife-husband — but more importantly from India’s perspective, shooter-coach! — were walking in the Games Village, arms linked, faces sombre, oblivious to the beauty of the night. That day’s events had worn them out.

Today at the shooting range, they presented a much more contented picture, for Heena had shot gold in the 25m pistol event, after overcoming challenges that were incredibly complex, and had nothing to do with her shooting. Shooting is full of nasty surprises, and Heena got at two of them today.

As she shot in the rapidfire section during the qualification stage, something in the shooting station next to her malfunctioned, and an empty shell hit her. She missed a shot due to this. “As manager of the Indian team, I protested. We can claim ‘disturbance’ under the rules and get relief,” said Pandit. However, Heena couldn’t make the next shot because the next shot was announced too soon — Heena now was credited with zero points for two shots!

This would have killed Heena’s hopes. More protests followed. Pandit told officials Heena wouldn’t shoot until the matter was resolved. “We had to do a lot of fighting for that as well,” he said. This worked, too. But by then, the other shooters had finished. Heena had to make her final 10 shots under the gaze of all the other shooters and coaches. “It was quite distracting, as one becomes very self-conscious at this... But I managed to remain cool,” said Heena.

Shooting up

Heena qualified in third position with 579 points, and now started the real competition for her. Once in the final, Heena was where she wanted to be — she was going to fight for gold, and this is something she and Pandit had been focussing on for months. “In the final, you start from zero so we were not really bothered about where we were placed in qualification,” said Pandit. “In training, our plans were very specific – it was only about contesting for gold in the finals. This meant that our scores in training were poor, and Heena was getting dejected.”

“Yeah, so he used to tell me to just hang in there,” said Heena. “He told me that our target was to focus on the medal round, not qualification rounds. And so I was ready for the final.”

Sensational

Heena was glad that the tingling sensation in her trigger finger didn’t appear today, as it had during the 10m air pistol competition. “Luckily, it was OK yesterday and today,” Heena said. “So I told my physiotherapist I didn’t want treatment on it. I didn’t want to risk anything, I didn’t want my trigger finger muscles to feel loose. Luckily there was no problem.” There wasn’t, none at all: Heena shot a Commonwealth Games record of 38, beating the darling of the home crowd, Elena Galiabovitch, who finished with 35.

Heena’s 10m silver was something to be proud of, for she’d risen from the ashes. Yet, she was left with an empty feeling because a few bad shots early in the final had ruled gold out. “I had the regret that I could not compete for gold,” she said. “I found the solution to my problems a bit late, and I had also the regret that I could figure it out too late.”

The regrets had vanished tonight, replaced by happy grins. Things went well for this duo today, as for India, as Heena’s title took India’s gold count to 11.

No medal for Gagan

Also competing in Heena’s event was Annuraj Singh, who ended up sixth, getting eliminated in the second stage.

London Olympics bronze medallist Gagan Narang, contesting in only one event, 50m rifle (prone), finished seventh after having qualified in third position for the final. Gold Coast is the first CWG from where Narang’s medal count would be zero. Chain Singh finished fourth in the event.