'Narang's bronze has set a new milestone for his academy trainees'

Kolkata: Gagan Narang’s bronze medal winning feat in the 10m air rifle event at the London Olympics has set a new milestone for the 32 trainees at his Pune-based academy, Gun For Glory, and they would now look to better it in future, it’s founder director Pawan Singh said. It was a celebration time for the academy situated at the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports complex in Balewadi as the trainees distributed sweets and danced to drum beats after their role model won the bronze. The 35-year-old Singh, who is also the Indian Shooting team coach, said the bronze completes a circle as an Olympic medal was only missing from Narang’s cabinet. “He had won the World Championships, World Cup, Asian Games, Asian Championship and Commonwealth Games but the Olympic medal was only missing. It completes a circle,” an elated Singh told PTI from Pune. “The trainees who look up to Narang as their role model, it will be a milestone which they would look to challenge and better in future. It’s a huge motivation for them.” [caption id=“attachment_397634” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Gagan Narang’s bronze medal winning feat in the 10m air rifle event at the London Olympics has set a new milestone for the 32 trainees at his Pune-based academy. Getty Images[/caption] Gun for Glory shooting academy was set up by Narang and Singh on May 1, 2011 and the shooters from the academy have so far won 67 international medals. Out of the 11 shooters in London, four are from the Gun for Glory academy including Annu Raj Singh, Rahi Sarnobat and Heena Sidhu apart from Narang himself. “We are very happy with this bronze medal win though we were expecting a gold for Gagan, however, we are delighted to see Gagan wining some medal at Olympics as it was only the Olympic medal that was missing in his accolades,” Singh said. “We feel that Rahi Sarnobat and Anuu Raj Singh would also put up a great show.” With Narang competing in two more events – 50m prone and 50m 3 position – Singh expected the marksman to win at least one more medal. “50m prone is very unpredictable. You can’t say, anything can happen. But we are very hopeful in 3 position where he has worked very hard on his poisition (kneeling). He has done well in 3p in the past. We want him to win at least one more,” he said. He also admitted that they had expected Narang to bring laurels for the country after he had a disappointing result in Beijing four years ago where he failed to qualify for the final. He said that there is always pressure to perform in big-ticket events but it is something that comes as a package for professionals. “He was doing well barring the three 9s. There was pressure and one needs to live with it.” Singh said the academy was set up with Rio Olympics 2016 in mind. “But we already have four making Olympics this time. Our shooters are doing well. Tejaswini Muley and Sriyanka Sarangi recently shot 399 and 398 respectively (out of 400). We are looking to get better and better.” PTI