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India’s Air Rifle queen says “couple of medals” sure shot at Tokyo Olympics
Moudgil, who is in city to take part in the 13th All India Police Shooting Sports Championship, representing the Punjab Police, came in second in the 10-metre Air Rifle qualifying here
Anjum Moudgil is the first Indian to bag her Olympic spot when she won the silver medal in 10m air rifle event at the World Championship in South Korea, in 2018 – since then, the shooter has been getting ready for the Tokyo Olympics 2020.
Moudgil, who is in city to take part in the 13th All India Police Shooting Sports Championship, representing the Punjab Police, came in second in the 10-metre Air Rifle qualifying here. The final takes place today and Moudgil is the odds-on favourite to win.
“We give our 100 per cent and you can surely expect a couple of medals from the Indian shooting team,” said Moudgil, who recently won the 50m Rifle 3 at the 63rd national championship in Bhopal.
“2019 had some really important competitions. So after securing my Olympic spot, those events are like test events for me. It was more like training events and some competition were really good,” said Moudgil.
“This year, the nationals were good to find my mistakes. It was a good learning year, technically, mentally and physically, to understand my shooting,” added Moudgil, who trains under the coach Deepali Deshpande in Delhi. She also visits Mumbai and Pune to train.
Along with the 10m Air Rifle, Moudgil also contests the 50m Rifle 3 event.
“I focus on both. Whichever is not working well, the focus shifts to that event; sometime its air or sometime its .22, I am working on both,” added Moudgil.
Shooting for the Olympics
With around six months remaining for the Olympics, Moudgil has already planned which tournaments she will be participating in till then.
“I will try to shoot more this year, just to practice a match situation; like the Delhi world meet, a test event in Tokyo and then there will be a world cup in Munich. I will also compete in Germany on January 15,” said Moudgil.
These days India is blessed with young shooters and Moudgil is enjoying their company.
“They (young shooters) are really good. They have the best coaches, equipment and shooting ranges, and that is the reason they are shooting so well. They are actually motivating and pushing seniors to work hard. It is good to see youngsters in all the event are doing extremely well,” added Moudgil.
