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KIUG: Hriday Hazarika shoots gold for mother
Hriday Hazarika won gold in the 10m rifle at the 'Khelo India University Games Uttar Pradesh 2022'. He wants to reward his mother's sacrifices by winning an Olympic medal.
A mother is ready to do anything to fulfill the wishes of her children. If you don’t believe that then listen to the story of Hriday Hazarika representing Kottayam University in the ‘Khelo India University Games Uttar Pradesh 2022’ going on at Karni Singh Shooting Range in Delhi.
On Friday, Hriday Hazarika brought happiness to his mother by winning the gold medal in the 10-meter rifle. He was happy, but he wants to reward his mother’s sacrifices by winning an Olympic medal.
In the finals of 10m rifle shooting, except for the first two rounds, he continued to be number one in all the rounds thereafter, and as a result, defeated his rival Arjun Babuta and secured the first position. Hriday’s total score was 252.2.
The Assamese shooter, who recently won a silver medal at the Baku World Cup said that once his father had taken him to a shooting range and thereafter, such a passion for the game arose in him that he made it the aim of his life.
Hriday’s journey began with the principal of the Shankar Dev College, in Narayanpur, opening an air weapon shooting range on the college premises. Secondly, one of the teachers advised Hriday to start shooting. Initially, he started pistol but had more inclination towards rifle events. “I wasn’t comfortable handling a pistol. So, I switched to a 10m air rifle event,” he recalls. “It was the turning point of my shooting career.”
Hriday says that without his mother, he could not even think of playing such an expensive game.
When he mentioned rifle shooting to his mother, she said yes without thinking.
Today, Hriday has many awards in his kitty. He is happy with the arrangements made by the organisers of the Khelo India University Games. “These kinds of arrangements made by the government for university players make us feel that players like us also matter to the government,” he said.
His mother left a cushy government job to fulfill his ambitions and take him flying in the world of sports and now it is her dream to see her son win a medal in the Olympics.
In the women’s 50m rifle 3 position women, the Manipal University shooters walked away with gold, scoring 1735 points. The team of Mahek Jatana, Nischal and Manini Kaushik pushed Punjab University and Guru Nanak Dev University to the second and third spots, respectively.
Ashi Choluksey of GNDU with 461.6 points emerged victorious in the 50m rifle 3 position women early in the day on Friday. Sift Kaur Samra (457.7) also from GNDU and Nischal of Manipur University (446.9) bagged silver and bronze, respectively.
After winning a gold in the team event, Manipal University’s Manini Kaushik said even her family members had to bear the brunt of being a girl when she decided to pursue the sport.
“Be it an educated society or less educated. The thinking about girls is more or less the same everywhere. People used to ask my father why he spent so much on my game,” she said on Friday.
“My father is a judge and we went to Jammu and Kashmir with him in 2012. There we went to the BSF camp and it was there that we got hold of a rifle for the first time. My journey in sport started in 2014 and today I have many medals in my bag.”
According to Manini, her grandmother was in the NCC and was a very good shooter, but due to family reasons she did not join the army. “My grandmother is still there and supports me. But the way they used to think about me being a girl, after playing the first World Cup in 2016 and winning a medal, they got the answer that girls can do a lot.”