 "Swapnil Kusale wins bronze at Paris Olympics: Shooter from model village celebrates birthday early")
Swapnil Kusale , who hails from a model village in Maharashtra, which shuns alcohol and discourages use of tobacco, gave himself an early birthday present. The Kolhapur lad, who came up in life the hard way, shot his way to an Olympic bronze medal on his debut at the Games in the 50 metres Rifle 3-Position in Chateauroux, a small town two and a half hours outside Paris but well known for its shooting facilities.
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Kusale will turn 28 on August 6 and the celebrations will begin a week early.
This was India’s third medal in shooting and is the first time India have won so many medals from any sport in a single Olympics Games.
In 2012, India won two medals and they came from Vijay Kumar (silver in Men’s 25m rapid fire) and Gagan Narang (bronze in Men’s 10m Air Rifle). Interestingly Gagan is the Chef-de-Mission in Paris and one of Kusale’s idols. Kusale considers his time with Narang as one of the highlights.
Hailing from a modest background with his father, a primary school teacher, barely being able to support his love for the sport. A sports-lover by nature, Kusale was encouraged by his father, who got him enrolled into Maharashtra’s Primary school sports programme, where he had to choose one sport. He chose shooting.
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Born in Kambalwadi, a village in Kolhapur district, it is well-known for shunning alcohol and discouraging tobacco and gutka use. It is also known for organic farming. So, as far the school teacher father, Suresh Kusale was concerned, his son was picking the right habits and values.
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More ShortsYet shooting was the sport of his choice when he went to the Kreeda Probodhini scheme at the age of 13. And shooting was an expensive sport with guns and ammunitions costing a lot. Hampered by that, he used the bullets sparingly for he knew he only had limited quantity. When he was chosen by Lakshya Sports, he began getting aid and training became relatively better.
Eye catching performances in the junior categories helped him get a job in Railways, where he is now a ticket examiner.
Kusale’s big moment before this came at the 2022 Asian games (held in 2023), where he won a gold medal in Men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions Team and with Aishwarya Pratap Singh and Akhil Sheoran, as they set a world record.
He also has one gold and two silvers from the ISSF World Cup at Baku in 2022.
Kusale qualified for the Paris Olympics through a fourth place in World Championships in Cairo in 2022 and has been dreaming of the Games since then.
In Paris, Kusale did not have the best of starts and totalled 153.3 in Kneeling and was down in sixth place with Norwegian shooter Jon-Hermann Hegg in the lead at 155.3.
Things became better thereafter for the Indian, but he was still fifth after the Prone Stage. With 310.1 he was behind Hegg (312.1), world record holder Liu Yukun of China (311.5), Ukraine’s Serhiy Kulish (311.1) and Czech Republic’s Jiri Privratsky (311.0).
The big move happened in the Standing shots, where his series of 51.1 and 50.4 which was way better than most others including those ahead of him. That catapulted him into medal contention. He hung on to it as the elimination stage began.
The elimination stages see the bottom shooter fall off after each shot. Kusale shot 10.5, 9.4 and 9.9 with his next three shots to hold his position in the top-three and confirmed a medal.
However, a 10.0 with the next shot wasn’t enough to keep him in contention for the gold, as Kulish, who also had a good series in Standing (Kusale and his totals were the same for Standing at 101.5) edged him.
In the final series of shots, Yukun won the gold medal with 463.6 while Ukraine’s Serhiy Kulish (461.3) picked up his second Olympic silver to add to his earlier one from Rio 2016.
Kusale, who was eliminated from the Gold-Silver battle tallied 451.4.
Kusale made the eight-man final on Wednesday by finishing seventh in the qualifiers with a total of 590.
India now have three bronze medals from the ongoing Olympic Games. The first two came courtesy Manu Bhaker (10m Air Pistol Women) and Manu Bhaker-Sarabjot Singh (10m Air Pistol Mixed Team).
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