At the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, Elavenil Valarivan was a teenager who was left heartbroken seeing her rifle jam mid-competition. She finished 14th in qualification and did not advance to the final. Eight years later, on Sunday, she stood on the podium in Aichi-Nagoya not once but twice, winning India its first medal of the Asian Games 2026, a silver in the women’s 10m air rifle team event, then hours later she added another silver in the individual event.
For the 27-year-old Arjuna Awardee, what changed between Jakarta and Nagoya was not just her shooting. It was everything around it. “To win an Asian Games medal was a dream that was etched in my heart. As I sat on that flight to Japan, I felt confident of winning, and a lot of that confidence came from the changes I have made to my life in the last few years. I have evolved as a person since my first Asian Games as a teen. I have had two Olympics in between and multiple World Cups. The biggest mindset change is that now I enjoy the sport every single day. Just getting to play the sport, getting to be a part of the Indian team makes me happy rather than overcomplicating things in my head. Shooting as a sport isolates you, so I started making a cautious effort to be more grounded and in touch with the outside world, which gave me a sense of being a human at the end of the day. I started letting people in my circle, into my life and that changed everything.” says Ela.
The shift, she says, began after a disappointing Paris Olympics 2024. Training under ace shooter Gagan Narang, an interaction gave her perspective, “Till Paris, it was more about making it to the team, winning, competing. I remember telling my coach that I feel a lot less social and I feel my communication skills are going for a toss. One of the key things that I remember Gagan sir telling me was ‘Ela, trust your process and believe in yourself. I think that is what is your mantra to success. And somewhere that kind of struck with me. I started going out with my friends. I’ve been going to movies again. I learnt crocheting on YouTube to just add more shades to my life. I’ve started being more social and not restricting myself in my room and just being myself.”
{{/usCountry}}The shift, she says, began after a disappointing Paris Olympics 2024. Training under ace shooter Gagan Narang, an interaction gave her perspective, “Till Paris, it was more about making it to the team, winning, competing. I remember telling my coach that I feel a lot less social and I feel my communication skills are going for a toss. One of the key things that I remember Gagan sir telling me was ‘Ela, trust your process and believe in yourself. I think that is what is your mantra to success. And somewhere that kind of struck with me. I started going out with my friends. I’ve been going to movies again. I learnt crocheting on YouTube to just add more shades to my life. I’ve started being more social and not restricting myself in my room and just being myself.”
{{/usCountry}}That calm nearly carried her all the way to gold. In Sunday’s individual final, Ela was within inches of the top of the podium before finishing second, 0.6 points behind Japan’s Hinata Taichi. She is honest about why. “It is a bitter sweet moment but one that teaches. I lost out on gold because my mind and body got a little too relaxed and my focus might have just faltered. But I am happy that I get to learn from this too. That is what having a perspective in the last few years has taught me, to stay in the moment, learn from mistakes and not let anything fluster you.”