New Delhi: Shooting balloons and blowing bubbles in village fairs, Saurabh Chaudhary would dream of excelling in the Olympic sport one day.
Having an air rifle resting on his shoulders and taking aim at those blue, yellow and red balloons, acquaintances say, would make him feel like Abhinav Bindra.
Then, there came a time when Chaudhary would shoot day in and out, leading to participation in inter-school and inter-state meets and as pastime gave way to habit and habit to obsession, he found himself competing in national level tournaments.
Impressed, his father Jagmohan Singh – a sugarcane farmer, set up a shooting range at home. The schoolboy honed his skills at the backyard and at national level shooter Amit Sheoran’s academy in Baghpat, Haryana, which is around 15 kilometres from his UP village.
We feel proud because Saurabh has made the country proud. But, there is still a long way to go
Jagmohan Chaudhary
Doubly impressed with his son’s progress, Chaudhary senior eventually bought the promising shooter, who was once fond of playing around with toy guns, a pistol.
Chaudhary said that he “did not feel any pressure” while shooting in the 10m air rifle event of the ongoing Asian Games in the Indonesian port city of Palembang.
He was picked ahead of multiple time gold medallist Jitu Rai and in his first competitive senior tournament, trumped men with enviable record, like Japanese Tomoyuki Matsuda – two-time World Champion, and Korea’s Jin Jong-Oh, with four Olympic gold medals and three World Championships titles, is one of the greatest to have played the sport.