Haryana shooter Himanshu’s story in shooting began akin to many in the state and their fabled start – they were chubby children as youngsters and it needed a nosy chacha to convince his father that it might be time for the son to be exposed to the outdoors. In Neeraj Chopra’s case it was one of his uncles who told him to join a gym. In Himanshu’s case, when his Rio Olympics greco-roman wrestling family friend – who has grown into the status of family chacha – demanded that the ghar ka beta try wrestling, the family caved easily. And why wouldn’t they – after all Hardeep Singh was the first-ever wrestler from India to qualify for a heavyweight category at the Olympics in greco-roman. His words carried weight in their village of Jind.
Those bold designs lasted a grand total of two weeks.
All it took was a national level wrestler to deliver an epic beatdown to pump the brakes on the fleeting thought of wrestling that Himanshu had been prodded into.
After a few weeks of deliberation, and the then 17-year-old’s insistence that combat sports wasn’t for him, the family zeroed in on shooting. They took their son to a gurukul in their hometown where a shooting coach told them to give him a month to see whether he could extract some talent from him.
A month later, the coach came back with some good news. Himanshu had the calm temperament needed to survive a tense shooting final. But this career path would come at a cost. It is quite well known that shooters purchasing their first rifles often is the first entry barrier into the sport.
“We were told that a good rifle would cost over Rs 3 lakhs. I was assured by the coach that in case Himanshu wasn’t able to succeed at shooting, we would be able to sell the weapon at a loss of Rs 10,000, said Himanshu’s father.
When the 20-year old picked up a well-deserved gold medal in the Jr World Cup 10m air rifle event at the Karni Singh Shooting Range on Monday, it was the start of what could be a successful arc that leads to the seniors team for Himanshu.
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What was missing at the event in New Delhi though, was the lack of an elite field in the event and scores that were not comparable to the seniors. India is a country where shooters announce themselves at the juniors level with bombastic scores that push coaches to fastrack them. That might not be the case as of yet.
But Himanshu can take heart from his performance in the final six shots of the event. Locked in the medal positions between another prodigious Indian talent in Abhinav Shaw and individual neutral athlete Dimitrii Pimenov, the Haryana shooter was leading the line but the gap between the three oscillated under a point. Often in those situations, inexperienced shooters tend to get defensive and allow the marksmen below them to gain ground and invite pressure.
But Himanshu kept both at bay, especially with his first three shots – a near perfect 10.8, followed by two 10.6s. His next three shots were two 10.4s and a 10.2 when the contest was virtually closed.
Prior to those shots the Indian had a brief bit of lull where his scores dipped slightly. He described what happened in the moment and said, “Haryana ki mitti mein hi hai thoda gussa.” Asked to elaborate, he said, “There were a lot of fluctuations in standings happening at the time. I started thinking too much, and forgot to follow my process. At that time I got angry because things weren’t going my way. I told my mind to shut up and stop it, and then took my shot.”
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With the world record in the men’s 10m air rifle being a tall 253.7 by India’s very own Divyansh Singh Panwar, Himanshu’s 250.9 still is some blocks away. But for a shooter that only started taking the sport seriously post the pandemic, a home junior World Cup gold serves as a welcome boost.