First Touch: How did Aishwary Pratap Singh take to shooting?
Shooting was a way of life for Aishwary...
Fairs and shooting balloons is a compulsory fragment of the montage called childhood memories for almost all in India. And Aishwary Pratap Singh is no different. As a kid, he used to eagerly wait for the Navgarh fairs in the district capital of Khargone, Madhya Pradesh, where he would shoot some balloons and try to emulate his father who was a 'shikaari' (hunter) and had a battery of guns in his possession.
Hence, right from his childhood, Singh has grown up amidst guns and bullets.
“Being a landlord (of 50 acres of land), I own more than three guns and we would often go hunting when Aishwary was young,” Veer Bahadur had recalled previously to Indian Express.
Rather than studies, it was his father's guns that fascinated him more. On holidays, he would lend a hand to his father while he would clean up his shotgun and the break barrel rifle.
Moreover, he did not have to look far for inspiration as his cousin Navdeep Singh Rathore was himself a professional shooter and had travelled with the Indian squad to the 2010 Youth Olympics in Singapore. Rathore played an instrumental part in convincing Aishwary’s father to allow him to take up shooting seriously rather than pursuing his studies.
“I promised him (Aishwary’s father) that I cannot guarantee about his studies but I will make him a professional shooter. He was hard working from the beginning. In the first pre-national event called Sports Craft, he made a junior record and qualified for nationals,” he told Olympics.com.
At just 15, he walked into the Madhya Pradesh Shooting Academy (MPSA) with Navdeep and thus began his journey in professional shooting. However, it was a rough start as he did not get selected in the trials. Again, Rathore made sure that his younger brother learns enough so that he could pass the trials and get into MPSA. Hence, in the local ranges of Bhopal he used to take him and to practice. Also to get a feel of the range, he enrolled Aishwary into a summer camp that was organised by MPSA.
The hard work paid off and Singh qualified to become a cadet of the academy. He started training under his brother and later would go on to train under Vaibhav Sharma, his first coach in MPSA.
Rathore also arranged for a specialised rifle-coach from Gagan Narang’s Gun for Glory Academy, who came to MPSA for a month and worked with Aishwary.
“He would train according to that plan. Therefore, his base is so strong. We worked a lot on his foundation.”
But however, in his first nationals in 2015 he got disqualified as his butt plate was one cm below the permitted level.
"It was the toughest time. I used to watch all the kids participating in other competitions and I had to stay alone in the hostel. Pehle kabhi akela raha bhi nehi. (Had never stayed alone before). So it was very difficult. It was very tough mentally,” Aishwary had earlier recounted to Olympics.com.
It is in his genes to fight against all odds. Once again, he did not give up and in the next year, he returned to the domestic stage once again to prove his mettle.
First National Medal
In 2018, he won gold in three disciplines in the junior nationals and had to never look back.
First International Medal (Junior)
In July 2019, he won gold in the ISSF junior World Cup with world record score of 459.3, beating 458.7 set in the Beijing World Cup earlier that year set by Filip Nepejchal. This was his first significant gold in the junior circuit.
First International medal (Senior)
Singh won the bronze medal in the 50m 3P at the 2019 Asian Shooting Championship in Doha, with a score of 449.1 in the final. This also earned him a spot in the Tokyo Olympics.
"It is one of those ranges in the world where there's a lot of wind. Moreover, my weight was also less back then, just 57-58 kg. So while standing, I was also swinging a bit with my rifle. It required a lot of patience to get the targets right," he explained.
When is Aishwary Pratap Singh in action at Tokyo 2020?
Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar will be in action in the qualifiers of the men's 50m 3 Position event on Monday, August 2.