From the young emerging champions in shooting to Sindhu breaking the jinx by winning Gold, PIONEER SPORT brings you a list of mega events of 2018 that made headlines
16-year-old shooting trio of Manu Bhaker, Saurabh Chuadhary, and Anish Bhanwala break grounds in 2018 to emerge champions in the top three sporting events of the year.
Manu had a successful debut at the international arena, where the 16-year-old from Jhajjar district in Haryana bagged historic Gold medals in 10 metre air pistol at Youth Olympics and Commonwealth Games.
Bhaker started her marvelous run from the ISSF World Cup held at Guadalajara in Mexico, where she won the Gold medal in the 10 meter air pistol category, defeating two-time world champion Alejandra Zavala from Mexico. She scored 237.5 the final match against Zavala, who scored 237.1. By winning the Gold medal at age 16, Bhaker became the youngest Indian to win a yellow metal at the World Cup.
Bhaker won another WC Gold in the 10 m Air Pistol mixed team event. She paired with Om Prakash Mitharval and the duo shot shot a score of 476.1 points to take home the winners medal.
Then in April at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, Bhaker secured first place in after setting a new Games record of 240.9 points. She defeated experienced Heena Sidhu, who finished with Silver medal.
However she was unfortunate to miss medal at Jakarta- Paembang Asian Games, where after setting a game's record score of 593 in the qualification round of 25m Air pistol event. She failed to win a medal, finishing 6th in the final. Eventually, her compatriot Rahi Sarnobat clinched the Gold in this event.
After her stellar run in the calender year, Manu was named as the flag bearer for the Indian contigent at Buenos Aires Youth Olympics in Argentinia.
And there too she lived upto the expectations and shot 236.5 to stand at the top of the points table in the women’s 10m air pistol event. The promising star of the future thus became the first shooter from India and the first female athlete from India to grab a Gold medal at the Youth Olympics games.
Another name that dominated the shooting range along with Manu was of Saurabh Chaudhary. The boy coming from the JAT family of farmers living in Yamuna & Gangatic plains of western uttar pradesh, went on to become the only indian shooter to win Gold medal in ISSF world championship,Youth Olympics, Asian Games and Asian air gun championship.
He started his campaign by winning Gold at the Asiad and then participated in the Junior ISSF World Championship to complete the Golden double.
After two succesive Gold winning performances he then went to create history in Argentina by becoming the first Indian shooter to finish top in Youth Olympic Games.
While in the last assignment of the year, he participated in Asian Airgun Championship and confidently won three Gold medal (one each in 10 m pistol individual, team competition and mix team event.)
The third in the list of superstar at sixteen was Anish Bhanwala who finsihed first in 25 m rapid fire pistol at Gold Coast games. He also won an individual Gold at ISSF Junior World Cup in Sydney and Bronze in Suhl.
Apart from these young supertars, seasoned campaigner Jitu Rai (10 metre air pistol), Heena Sidhu (25 metre pistol), Shreyasi Singh (double trap), Tejaswini Sawant (50 metre rifle 3 positions) and Sanjeev Rajput (50 metre rifle 3 positions) finished top in Commonwealth Games.
While, Rahi Sarnobat (25 metre pistol) bagged Gold in Asian Games. In process she became the first Indian woman individual to achieve this rare feat.
Stars to look out for in future
Tushar Mane (16-year-old, 10 m air rifle Silver in Youth Oylmpics)
Mehuli Ghosh (18-year-old, 10 m air rifle Silver in Youth Olympics)
Esha Singh (13-year-old, 3 Golds in National C’ship).