With the tough Asian Games gold in his pocket, and pushing away a huge mental block along with it, shooter Jitu Rai is now keen to taste Olympic success.
“My aim now is to do well in the next Olympics and I’m willing to work harder for it,” the 27-year-old Army shooter told The Hindu after winning the men’s 50m free pistol gold here on Saturday.
Rai, the World No. 1 in 10m air pistol event which will be held here on Sunday, has been on a roll this year with six major medals at the World championship, World Cups, Commonwealth Games and now the Asian Games. With many World and Olympic champions in the fray, shooting at the Asian Games is considered to be as strong as the Olympics. And that offers hope.
“He is a wonderful talent, hard worker and he has been doing very well.
“He holds a lot of promise,” said Russian Pavel Smirnov, India’s pistol shooting coach, who has shaped him into a fine shooter over the last few months.
Surprisingly, Rai took to shooting only four years ago, but he hogged the limelight in the last one year with a string of impressive results.
“I wasn’t in any other sport before I came to shooting at the Army centre.
“The Army has helped me a lot,” said Rai.
“Rai has been competing in a lot of events, one after the other, the Commonwealth Games, World championships and now the Asian Games…what he needs right now is at least a month’s rest and after that we will have to think of the Nationals in November,” said Pavel.
“We need to chart out a sensible programme for the next two years so that he can do well at the Olympics.
“I have a few things in my mind, I will have to discuss this with the Olympic association and then decide.”
The future certainly looks very promising.
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