Straight Shooter

Hyderabad boy shoots individual bronze, team gold at Asian Shooting Championship

Originally published in The Times of India on November 16, 2019

Hyderabad: A 20 year-old boy from Hyderabad, Abid Ali Khan won the individual bronze medal in the 50m Rifle Prone junior men event with a score of 614.4 at the Asian Shooting Championship 2019 in Doha, Qatar.

Khan was part of the junior men’s team event in the same category along with Niraj Kumar and Harshrajsinhji Gohil. The team won a gold medal with a score of 1845 points.

Abid Ali Khan said, “I started my career in 2015. On my father’s suggestion, I started training 15 days before the state competition, shot a 287/300 in the junior 50m Rifle Prone category, set a state record and won the gold medal. I am a current national record holder in the big bore event (588/600 in 300m Rifle juniors).”

Abid’s personal coach is his father Dr. Sabir Ali Khan, also a shooter who was in the national 300m rifle team in 2013.

Khan trains on a SCATT simulator for 2 hours every day. The simulator shows the trace of how the shooter approaches the target and releases the shot. After training, Khan does light muscle training and focuses on cardio (a mix of cycling, treadmill, running), stretching exercises and lightweights in the range up to 7.5 kg. When it comes to competitions, he trains 5-6 hours a day, firing around 200-250 rounds a day in the Gachibowli shooting range.

Talking about the infrastructure of sports training in the state, Khan said, “The Gachibowli shooting range was built in 2002 and has not been maintained since then. Because of moisture and humidity, the electronic targets get spoilt and there is error in the sensors. We need proper equipment in terms of rifles and ammunition. Over 10 lakh rounds have been fired on the rifles and there is no barrel life left in them. We have to ration our ammunition before competitions.”

On his future goals, Khan said, “My goal is to get an Olympic medal for India. The event I specialize in, 50m Rifle Prone was removed from the Olympics. To help my country get more medals, I have started training in the 10m rifle and 50m rifle three position Olympic events. It is a new challenge for me because I will have to start from scratch. Suma Shirur, a specialist in 10m rifle will be training me for these two events.”