Road to Rio: Shooter Ayonika Paul could be the dark horse for India at the Olympics

Name: Ayonika Paul Age: 23 Discipline: Shooting Category: Women’s 10m Air Rifle Qualification: Ayonika Paul bagged the silver in women’s 10m air rifle at the Asia Olympic Qualifying Competition to secure her debut Olympics berth. Strengths: Ayonika is a disciplined shooter who has won medals for India in the past. This experience and the heartbreak of missing the London Olympics by a whisker will make her even more determined for a strong showing at Rio. Past Olympic performance: Debut Past record (best performances): Silver medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow -Silver at the 2016 Asian Olympic Qualifying tournament in New Delhi -Bronze medal at the 2014 ISSF World Cup in Maribor Rio Prospects: While Ayonika Paul cannot be called an outright medal hope, she has the potential to be a dark horse in a sport as unpredictable as shooting. However, she will be expected to reach the last eight, which will be a noteworthy achievement for the young shooter. [caption id=“attachment_2604814” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Ayonika Paul. Getty Images[/caption] Ayonika Paul will be making her Olympic debut at Rio 2016, but the young shooter knows both the pressure and thrill of representing India at a global event. The 23-year-old has won the silver medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and qualified for the Olympics with another silver-medal winning performance at the Asian Olympic Qualifying tournament. She came close to gold at the qualifying tournament in Delhi, after she shot 205.9 in the eight-woman final, same as gold medalist Najmeh Khedmati of Iran, but lost out on the top prize as she managed 9.9 to the Iranian’s 10.1 in the shoot-off. However, the podium finish was proof of the talent she has, and she is preparing to do much better in Rio. Hailing from Mumbai, Ayonika is an engineering student at the Pillai College of Engineering, who took up shooting back in 2006. Coached by Farnik Thomas, the shooter has improved a lot in the last couple of years as was evident by her two wins in 2014 – the Commonwealth Games and the World Cup in Maribor. In the same years, she also she entered the final of four consecutive major tournaments, winning medals in two, according to her profile on Olympic Gold Quest. Ayonika first made news in 2008 when she won the gold medal at International Junior Shooting Competition in Munich and went on to win multiple medals in Junior National Shooting Championships. She had narrowly missed qualifying for the London Games, at the Asian Championships in Doha in 2012, and now that she has got her chance, will be raring to give it her best shot. Talking about her Olympics preparations, she said, “They are just as planned, what I had planned before on the books and it is according to that and I am happy about it. We are quite experienced right now and it’s all about how we handle it (pressure). And for me, I always love to play with a bit of pressure. Whatever preparations had to be done, are done, right now I am just polishing my technique. Ayonika will have a lot of expectation on her. Olympian shooter Joydeep Karmakar has picked her as a dark horse for a medal in Rio. “She has a very controlled aggression, like that of Abhinav (Bindra). Being technically strong is not everything, you’ve to be aggressive to clinch a crucial match in the final," he said. Being compared to Bindra, India’s only individual Olympic gold medalist is high praise indeed. A lot of people will hope that she can emulate his feat. However, even making the top eight and reaching the final will be considered a good showing by her. At 23, she has age on her side and this Olympic experience will help her become a better player and reap rewards in future tournaments. With inputs from agencies