Indian women’s 50-meter 3P shooter Sift Kaur Samra had a way out of jail till the Olympics in Paris. She was aware that she could always boost the Ferrari, which is her standing position scores, if her prone and kneeling positions weren’t on par with the best in the world.
Samra’s standing blitzkrieg would consistently propel her above some of the top Olympic shooters on the region and later the world, whether it was her fifth-place finish at the World Championships or her world record-breaking performance at the Asian Games in Hangzhou.
However, the subpar kneeling and prone performance was followed by an even worse standing performance at Chateauroux. One of India’s top medal hopes (she had won bronze at the Munich World Cup only a month earlier) ended a startling 31st out of 32 shooters as qualification came to an end.
Samra returned to India right away and went to a range to score. She had to know if she or the rifle had made a mistake that day.
“I believe social media played a role. because people’s knowledge of the sport was limited prior to the Asian Games and other contests. People usually start talking about us when we win a medal.
This time, however, the discussion took place before to the event, which was a completely new experience for me. Samra remarked, “I wasn’t used to that.”
“I was worried that I needed to win because I knew that everyone was watching me, and that was a mistake.”
The 23-year-old belonged to a group of Indian shooters that advanced in the 50m 3P position and established the nation’s shooters as a respectable force in the competition. Swapnil Kusale, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, and Akhil Sheoran were all achieving world-class results in the year preceding the Olympics, as were Samra, Anjum Moudgil, and Ashi Chouksey on the women’s team. Although Kusale earned a well-earned medal, India’s top 3P shooter.
Samra attempted to change things up when the standing position bullets failed to land dead center. She paused her rounds, walked away and returned after reconsidering, then checked her rifle to see if any adjustments were awry, and then checked her kit to find out what was wrong. However, there was no response, and the qualification came to an end with the bright prospect of a medal snuffed out.
I believed that I could have been hauled out of the predicament by my standing, even after the prone posture went wrong. However, I was simply out of my element when standing.
Samra’s mother was by her side right away following that terrible qualification, and she wasted no time in bringing her a roast.
The crunching tackle, though in joke, was, “At least you came second from the bottom.” “Punjabi moms,” a resigned Samra clarified. To help her forget what had happened, the family later took her to Paris for a day from Chateauroux.
The 50m 3P shooter has been having trouble reproducing comparable scores at the beginning of the year following the Asian Games high last year. However, the results of the Munich World Cup, which was played in a stacked field, showed that she was regaining her form.
That has to do with the kit. It took me some time to get used to my changing equipment, but I eventually did so when I competed in Munich. New kits address the problem of our kits becoming less rigid with use, said Samra.
She had to go to the trials in order to qualify for the World University Games squad once she returned to India following the Olympics. Following those hardships, she made the decision to take a month-and-a-half hiatus in order to recover from the heartbreak and a shoulder injury she had sustained while returning to India. Her personal coach Deepali Deshpande, who had witnessed her ward go on a tear while competing in a number of national and international events before being cursed with the phrase “It was just a bad day” — at the Paris Olympics of all places — suggested that she take a break.