Arjun Babuta breaks medal drought in Lima
Arjun Babuta won silver at the 10m air rifle event at the ISSF World Cup at the Las Palmas range in Lima, Peru on Saturday.
Mumbai: Moments after his 10m air rifle final in Lima, Arjun Babuta walked up to coach Deepali Deshpande with some words. “He told me, ‘ma’am, aaj Olympics ke baad first time mazaa aaya final mein (I enjoyed a final for the first time after the Olympics)’,” Deepali said.
For months after the Paris Olympics in July-August last year where he finished a painful fourth, Babuta was left bereft of that joy. He didn’t feel like picking up his rifle, firing those shots, chasing the medals. On Saturday, as he stood with his rifle in hand after winning silver at the ISSF World Cup Lima, he raised both his arms and let out a loud roar.
The joy was back. So was the belief-boosting medal.
After three years of wait — he last won an individual World Cup medal in 2022 (Changwon, gold) — and several months of woe, the 26-year-old from Punjab found himself back on the podium. In some fine company at that. China’s Sheng Lihao (252.4) took the gold that Babuta (252.3) had within his grasp until the final two-shot series. A 10.9 and 10.3 from the Chinese to 10.3 and 10.5 from the Indian made the difference in the end. Lihao is the Paris Olympics 10m air rifle champion. Sweden’s Victor Lindgren, the Paris silver medallist, came fourth in Lima.
Babuta knows the frustration of that near-miss ending. Multiply the heartbreak to the setting of his first Olympics outing. The sour taste took its own sweet time to heal.
“Shooters do usually reflect and feel gutted in the aftermath of such results, but in his case, it dragged for too long,” Deepali, chief coach of India’s rifle team who has also coached Babuta personally, said from Lima.
“People kept reminding him of that fourth-place finish, and somewhere it irritated him. He was completely disheartened, and just did not feel like shooting again. That he still kept at it shows his discipline to the sport. But he would say, mazaa nahi aa raha (I’m not enjoying it),” she added.
It reflected in his results across the last few months.
“Since the Paris Olympics, I’ve not been getting any position in the finals, not even in national competitions. So this really feels really good,” Babuta told ISSF after the final. “The things I’ve been trying are finally working in my favour.”
Some of those things included being experimental with his equipment and mental approach. And also dabbling in new skills. Speaking to HT a couple of months after the Olympics, Babuta said he’d like to go back to practicing tabla and singing. “I want to do all this in a way that it distracts me from my shooting,” he had said.
Being part of the wedding festivities of fellow shooters Shriyanka Sadangi and Akhil Sheoran in February also helped. “Because their lives are so shooting-centric, some of his closest friends are also shooters. Being part of that wedding, and things to plan and celebrate in it, helped him refresh,” Deepali said.
The coach had maintained that although the Paris fourth-place finish is bound to sting, it would also make Babuta richer by experience. For that was the first time the Indian, who wasn’t part of India’s Asian Games and World Championships squads in 2023, had encountered pressure of that intensity and magnitude.
“He was winning World Cup medals, but he hadn’t been to the Asian Games or World Championships before the Olympics. At the Olympics, the pressure is always something else. So that result was about his mindset in those big stages, not about his quality of shooting,” Deepali said.
Babuta’s quality of shooting has never been in doubt for her, and it wasn’t even on Saturday. After the first five-shot series until the last shot, not once did Babuta shoot below 10.3. That high quality of shooting is now beginning to be accompanied by big-stage experience, comfort and belief. And the return of a feeling of joy.
“The next few years could be exciting times for Arjun,” Deepali said.
Mixed silver for Rudrankksh-Arya
India earned another silver medal on Sunday in the 10m air rifle mixed team event courtesy Rudrankksh Patil and Arya Borse. The Indian combine lost to Norway’s Jeanette Hegg Duestad and Jon-Hermann Hegg 17-11 in the gold medal match.
The Norwegians had topped the qualification earlier in the day with a score of 632.6, followed closely by 632.5 by Arya and Rudrankksh, who had won the individual gold at the previous World Cup in Argentina and exited eighth in the final in Lima. India’s second pair of Babuta and Narmada Raju were seventh in the qualification.
