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Almost anyone in India interested in sports would about the moment Rajyavardhan Rathore won a silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics. The wrap-around Oakley glasses, the fastidiously trimmed moustache, the targets exploding in plumes, and Rathore imperiously flicking the burned-out cartridges from the barrel.
India’s first individual silver at the Olympics was a turning aspect for shooting as a sport in the country.
But for Ronjan Sodhi, a silver at the 2012 Olympics won’t be enough.
Trigger-light-hearted: Double-trap shooter Ronjan Sodhi at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Distribute in Delhi. Photo: Priyanka Parashar/Mint
The 32-year-old overlapped-trap shooter has had such an astonishing two years on the circuit that anything less than the top prize runs the chance of being labelled a disappointment. “If he brings the silver, I will not be happy,” says Marcello Dradi, the Italian mentor of Sodhi and the Indian shotgun shooting team, with a casual shrug of the shoulders. Sodhi does not have dumbfound on his side—a world record and gold at the International Shooting Sport Combination’s ISSF World Cup Lonato 2010, a gold at the 2010 In every respect Cup Final, two silvers at the 2010 Commonwealth Games (individual and tandem join up), a gold at the 2010 Asian Games, a silver at the 2011 Beijing ISSF In every respect Cup Shotgun, a bronze at the 2011 Maribor ISSF World Cup, a gold at the Al Ain 2011 Time Cup, and the No. 1 ranking in the world (he is currently No. 2), has snatched that plenty away from him. “But really, there is no pressure on me whatsoever...” Sodhi says, negotiating his car through messy See trade to get to the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range in New Delhi.
Source: Livemint