Local shooting ranges that have mushroomed across several districts of northern India have become a good breeding ground for precision shooters.
One of the air weapon ranges in Ladwa town of Kurukshetra district in Haryana attracted a promising shooter — Ramita Jindal, a few years ago.
Ramita, an undergraduate B. Com. (Hons) student from Delhi University’s Hansraj College, made a memorable Olympic Games debut on July 29. She finished seventh in the women’s 10m air rifle event at Chateauroux shooting ranges some 150 miles from Paris in France.
Her effort, however, was lost in the celebrations of pistol shooter Manu Bhaker’s two bronze medals, on July 28 (10m air pistol, women) and July 30 (10m air pistol, mixed team), which made her the first athlete in independent India to win two medals at the same edition of the Olympic Games.
| Ramita’s achievements |
| 2023: 10m air rifle team silver at Asian Games in China. |
| 2022: World Cup (Baku): Gold medal in 10m air rifle team event. World Cup (Changwon): Silver medal in 10m air rifle team event. Junior World Championship (Cairo): Individual and team gold in 10m air rifle. |
| 2021: Junior World Championship (Lima). Bronze medal in 10m air rifle. |
The day after Manu won her first medal, all eyes were on Ramita.
She gave a good account of herself in the 60-shot qualification match, finishing fifth with a score of 630.7 points. The top eight shooters in the qualification advanced to the final.
Ramita continued her good run in the 24-shot final match. After the first 14 shots of the 24-shot final match, she was tied with Oceanne Muller of France as both the shooters had an identical score of 145.3 points.
In the shoot-off to stay in the hunt and medal contention, Ramita missed out to eventually finish seventh.
Back home, the Jindal family was glued to the TV to witness their daughter compete at the global stage with the best in the business.
Ramita’s father — Arvind is an advocate while her mother is a housewife. Her younger brother, a 12th class student, has also started air weapon practice but is yet to make a big impression like her elder sister.
Ramita started visiting local shooting ranges in 2016, when she was in eighth class. Initially she had to practice with the weapon available at the ranges.
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“She devoted an hour a day at the ranges but gradually got more serious and increased the time at ranges,” Ramita’s father explained.
“She made rapid progress and won couple of medals at the junior world level in 2021.”
Initially she practiced with a common weapon available at the local shooting ranges, but on the advice of the local coach, Jindal family got a personal weapon for Ramita.
Seeing her dedication for precision shooting the Jindal family continued to support their elder daughter. “For the last 18 months she was training in Chennai to further improve her technical skills,” Ramita’s father added.
According to Deepali Deshpande, a former international and rifle coach, precision shooting is all about hand-eye coordination.
“Minute details have to be kept in mind before preparing for a competition. Even a small screw of the rifle stock not fixed properly can spoil chances of a podium finish,” Deepali explained.
“The shooter has to be mentally strong to withstand any issue that crops up during the qualification or the final.”
Apart from practice at the ranges to polish skills, the shooter gearing up for competition has to be physically fit.
“The shooter should remain focussed to shoot 60 shots in the qualification. Even a decimal can make the difference,” the rifle coach added.
In the buildup to the Paris Olympic Games, Ramita got ample international exposure to finetune her skills.
With financial support from the government (Sports Authority of India) she got an opportunity to visit Dortmund (Germany) in March to test pellets to prepare for the Paris Olympic Games.
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