Road to Rio: Spirited shooter Jitu Rai is one of India's biggest medal hopes at 2016 Olympics

Name: Jitu Rai Age: 29 Discipline (sport): Shooting Category: 50m pistol, 10m air pistol

Qualification: Silver medal at 51st shooting World Championships

Strengths: Jitu is the man for the big occasion and is known to step up his game at big tournaments. History shows setbacks have only helped him get better and his indifferent form before Olympics could just spur him onto great things at Rio.

Past Olympic performance: Debut

Past record (best performances): Gold medal at 2014 Commonwealth Games (50m pistol) - Gold medal at 2014 Incheon Asian Games (50 m pistol)

Rio prospects: Jitu Rai is India’s big medal hope in shooting, especially in the 50m pistol event where he is ranked second in the world. Ranked three in the 10m air pistol event, his medals at 2014 Asian Games and ISSF World Cups in 2014 and 2015 show that a double medal haul isn’t beyond the twenty-nine year old.

Brought up in the Sittalpati-8 village in eastern Nepal, Jitu grew up cultivating paddy, potatoes and corn in his family farm. But after his father’s death, Jitu decided to move to India in 2006. He then joined the Gurkha regiment where he gradually got promoted to the position of Naib-Subedar, reports Sportskeeda .

When Jitu was at Indian army’s training base in Lucknow, he got accustomed to shooting during the drills and felt he could make a career out of it. However, his journey to becoming the shooter he is today was full of challenges and had to twice face rejection when he was sent back from the shooting camp in Mhow due to poor performances, reports Rediff .

But giving up wasn’t in the Nepal-born shooters’ dictionary. With some good performances in the domestic events, he was back in the fold, before truly storming into the limelight in 2014 in Munich and Maribor at the ISSF World Cups where his record-breaking performance made the world take note. With one gold and two silver medals, Jitu Rai announced himself to the world.

2014 was proving to be an excellent year for marksman who sealed qualification for the 2016 Olympics with a silver medal at the 51st World Shooting Championships. Jitu however couldn’t replicate similar form in 2015. But the armyman has always maintained his desire to make a mark at the 2016 Olympics.

“I have a desire, a burning desire within me to do well at the Olympics but it ends there only. I don’t think at all about other things, pressure, expectations and all.” Jitu had said in 2015. For India’s sake, let’s hope he puts that into practice in Rio in 2016.

With inputs from PTI