The 18-year-old Prerna Gupta, a student of Doon Institute of Shooting and Sports, mentored by International Medalist/Coach Mayank Marwah, has made Uttarakhand proud by winning six medals at the recently concluded National Shooting Championship at Pune.
Gupta scored an outstanding 378 out of 400 points and bagged Individual Bronze in Senior Women Open Air Pistol Category out of almost 300 women competitors, including World No 1 Heena Sidhu, Asian Games Bronze medalist Shweta Choudhary and Olympian Annu Raj Singh. Prerna shot exceptionally well in the finals and bagged the Bronze Medal. She further won Individual Silver in Jr women Open Category and Jr Women Civilian Category. In Senior women Civilian Category, she bagged a Gold. In team categories, Prerna Gupta bagged 2 Gold medals in Sr Women Civilian and Jr women Open Categories.
Gupta was the youngest of all the top eight participants and the best performer of all the participants from Uttarakhand. She was amongst the top eight shooters from men and women category which had the lineup of World No 1 Jitu Rai, Commonwealth Medallist PN Prakash and Samresh Jung and World University Champion Harveen Srao.
With an outstanding performance in the champion of champions, Prerna Gupta was the first runners- up and got a cash prize of Rs10000 ahead of world no 1 Jitu Rai who finished third. PN Prakash from Karnataka stood first, ahead of just 1 pt of Gupta. He is sure of a berth for National Games. Many close to her believe that she would win Gold for Uttarakhand.
Prerna is being coached and mentored by International Medalist and Coach Mayank Marwah at Doon Institute of Shooting and Sports Academy for the past five years. She undergoes a vigorous 4/5 hours’ training daily which includes physical, mental and technical training designed by her coach Mayank Marwah. Those watching her closely said her outstanding performance will prove to be a stepping stone for her quest for medal for India at RIO Olympics 2016.