Shooting World Cup: Rudrankksh Patil wins 10m air rifle gold in style

Mumbai: A few moments after Rudrankksh Patil was pipped by Sandeep Singh in the Paris Olympics selection trials in Bhopal last year, Patil walked around wearing a smile.

For a world champion and former world No.1 rifle shooter who was favoured to take one of the two spots on offer from the trials, missing the Olympics bus entirely would have been a gut punching blow. Even if it was, the youngster didn’t show, shrugging it off as a stumbling block deep into the Olympic cycle.

Overcoming that setback, Patil has kicked off a fresh Olympic cycle in fine fashion, winning the 10m air rifle gold at the ISSF World Cup in Buenos Aires on Sunday.

The familiar smile while flaunting his medal on the podium was back, so was the high-quality shooting from his rifle.

From first shot to last in the eight-man final that also featured Paris Olympian Arjun Babuta -- he finished seventh -- Patil was in command, and comfortably in the lead. The Indian finished with a score of 252.9, 1.2 points more than silver medallist Istvan Marton Peni of Hungary (251.7), and bronze medallist Marcelo Julian Gutierrez of Argentina (230.1).

“I’m feeling really nice. It’s been a long journey,” Patil told ISSF. “This is the first World Cup after the Olympics. I’m glad that I was able to perform to my level and bring the gold home.”

The 21-year-old Indian started with a 10.7 and signed off with a 10.8, firing 10.9 (the highest score in air rifle) thrice through the 24-shot final. Save for a blip of 9.9 in the 19th shot, he shot in the high 10s consistently.

It’s the kind of shooting that made Patil the 2022 world champion in air rifle, which secured India the quota in the event for the Paris Games. He also went on to capture World Cup gold in Cairo and bronze in Bhopal in 2023 and rise to the summit of the rankings. The youngster from Thane was making waves and building up steadily towards his first Olympics. Until he hit the trials roadblock that sent him tumbling down to square one.

“This medal was important for him to get back to that place again,” Deepali Deshpande, chief coach of India’s rifle team, said from Buenos Aires. “Not making it to Paris was a setback for him. He, like a lot of shooters who missed the bus in the trials, is still quite young, and such setbacks really make a lot of difference to their self-image.”

Patil though took little time in moving on from that. Shedding some weight, changing the equipment and also deciding to dabble in 50m rifle three positions, Patil was up and running again. He showed fine form in the national selection trials held in New Delhi in February, and carried that rhythm into the year’s first World Cup in Argentina.

Patil shot a high score of 633.7 in the qualification round, bettered only by Babuta (634.5), who had finished fourth at the Olympics.

The moment he strung together a brilliant first five-shot series in the final (53.2), Patil made it clear that he was the man to beat. After 16 shots and Babuta’s elimination, Patil maintained a significant one-point advantage over his Hungarian and Argentine challengers. It meant that despite that 9.9 in the 19th shot, Patil stood head and shoulders above the rest.

That the Indian kept his composure throughout the final in front of a loud local crowd cheering on for their Argentina bronze medallist Gutierrez after every shot stood out even more.

“Because the Argentine shooter was doing so well, the crowd was really going crazy,” Deepali said. “In this range, there is very little gap between the shooters and the crowd. And because the Argentine was shooting faster, the crowd was going wild while the others were still shooting. But Patil kept his patience, let them get done with the noise, and then shot. It was very smart shooting. And amazing throughout in terms of maintaining focus.”

To the crowd factor adding to his challenge, Patil said smiling: “That was the fun part of this final.”