Gagan Narang: It's a case of mind and body not being in sync

India’s Elavenil Valarivan (top) and Divyansh Singh Panwar compete in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team event at the Tokyo Olympics on Tuesday. Pic/PTI

India's ace marksman and 2012 London Olympics bronze medal-winning shooter, Gagan Narang has summed up the failure of the pistol and air rifle shooters at the Tokyo Olympics: "It is a clear case of the mind and the body not being in sync." Narang, who is a panelist on the Sony Sports Network, said this in response to a question from mid-day during a virtual interaction on Wednesday.

India's world leading pistol shooters, Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary and rifle stars, Elavenil Valarivan and Divyansh Singh Panwar drew blanks in both, the individual and mixed team events, at the Asaka Shooting Range in Tokyo recently, leaving fans thoroughly disappointed.

‘Multiple factors'

While some attributed the failures to the young age of the shooters, others felt that their mental conditioning may not have been appropriate. Narang, 38, however, put things in perspective. "Age cannot be a factor because these same shooters have won gold medals at World Cups and other prominent events worldwide in the past. And I don't accept the point of mental conditioning because I don't understand what people mean by it. At the end of the day, if the shooter hasn't got his or her scores, it's because of multiple factors. There are things like sighting, triggering, follow through etc, all of which are technical procedures that go into making a perfect shot sequence. A slip-up somewhere could lead to a different score," Narang, a multiple-time medallist in the 10m air rifle event at numerous World Cups, explained.

India's Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary. Pic/PTI

Narang cited the example of one of his wards, Valarivan. "I have done numerous exercises with Ela to firm her up mentally, like we would place multiple cameras around her just in case the cameras in Tokyo could affect her performance. I would stand in front of her while she shot just to ensure she could shoot despite the distraction. I also got her to do mock media interactions just in case some mediaperson asked her how she was feeling before her event.

"Now, over the last few days, I've been speaking to Ela and she said that she felt she did everything right technically. She said ‘sir, even when I felt I had shot a high 10 score [10.5 or 10.6] it turned out to be a low 10 [10.3 or 10.4].' She could not explain why. Now, this can only happen when your body is not giving you the right feedback. This is what pressure can do to you. If you see the medallists in Tokyo, there is no Germany, no Korea. Their top shooters have also crumbled under pressure, so it can happen to anyone; it has happened to me too," added Narang.

Balance crucial

Another senior shooter, Heena Sidhu said on Wednesday that India's shooters were needlessly participating in every international event even when the top teams were not in the fray. Narang agreed. "Probably, our shooters should not have participated in as many competitions [in 2020 and 2021]. I've asked my team to analyse how many of the Tokyo participants competed in the various events across 2020-21. So, from now on, there should be a system where we strike a balance between training and competition. They should spend more time training," he said.

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