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Name: Kynan Chenai
Age: 27
Discipline (sport): Shooting
Category: Trap
Past CWG performance: Debut
Past record (best performances): Gold in trap shooting in Commonwealth Youth Games 2008
Having disappointed in the 2016 Rio Olympics, Kynan Chenai will now be setting his sights on the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, where will hope to boost the legacy of his family in the sport with a medal.
Born on 29 January, 1991 into a prominent Parsi family in Hyderabad, Chenai showed an affinity for sports right since his school days. According to kynanchenai.in, he enrolled at the Hebron school in the southern Indian hill station of Ooty, and had represented his school in football, field hockey and swimming, with his side emerging on top in many an inter-school tournament.
"I love sports more than studies and after school, I play football or hockey, running or swimming," Chenai was quoted as saying according to Times of India.
It was at the age of 12 that he decided to take up shooting, the sport which his father Darius was quite active in. Darius was previously a national champion in shotgun trap before opting to devote his full attention to his family business, while Chenai's mother Dinaz also helped inspire her child into pursuing the sport. He was trained initially by his father, before being taken under the tutelage of Mansher Singh, who represented the country in the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games.
Chenai's first major brush with victory in rifle sport was at the National Shooting Championships in 2007, in which he won gold in junior men's trap shooting. That was soon followed by his first silver in an international competition, winning it at the Asian Clay Championships in February.
His biggest achievement till date though, would have to be the gold in trap shooting at the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune, in which he notched up a score of 128 to beat Malta's Burgia Ryan by a point.
Chenai would've experienced the biggest moment of his life when he finished fourth at the Asian Olympic Shooting Qualifiers to secure a berth in the men's trap event in the 2016 Rio Games. Chenai qualified for the event alongside fellow trap shooters Manavjit Singh Sandhu and Zoravar Singh Sandhu, the athletes he used to look up to back in his junior days.
His stay in Brazil though didn't quite turn out as expected, as both Manavjit and he failed to qualify for the men's trap semi-finals, finishing 19th and 16th respectively in the two-day qualifying round.
With the event set to take place in less than a month now, Chenai will hope to make up for the disappointment in the Olympics as he prepares for the second big challenge of a shooting career that is still in its nascent stage.
Updated Date: Mar 17, 2018 11:32:45 IST
