Every year, at least 15 athletes win the Arjuna Award but only a handful are household names. The Field is kicking off a new series – Know your Arjuna Awardee – where we will profile some of the lesser known athletes who have won India’s second most prestigious sporting honour.

  • In 2008, as an engineer working in Toronto, he decided to take part in the Canadian national championships and ended up scoring 575 points to equal the national record.
  • In 2013, he suffered from a facial paralytic attack on his way to a tournament that could have ended his career.
  • In 2014, he overcame it all and won a silver medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and a team bronze medal at the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon.
  • In 2016, the then 40-year-old became the oldest Indian shooter to make his Olympic debut.
  • In 2017, Prakash Nanjappa will become an Arjuna Award winner.

Nanjappa’s career has been nothing short of a roller coaster, and the Arjuna Award, despite his nomination being rejected three times before, is a huge mental boost to the 41-year-old shooter.

“I’m very happy to receive it, this award is pushing me more and making me stronger,” Nanjappa told The Field. “I was not sure at first because my nomination has been rejected before. But then it came out in the papers that 17 athletes have been recommended for the awards. Some of the media people were calling me and I thought it’s just a recommendation, right? But then one of them confirmed it,” he added.

The late-blooming shooter didn’t think of the awards when he took up shooting as a full-time career. “I never thought of any national recognition as such, my passion was shooting and I wanted to represent India at the Olympics and win a medal,” he said. But much before his first Olympic appearance in Rio, Nanjappa had almost given up the sport, not once but twice.

From Canada to India

Son of shooter-coach PN Papanna, Nanjappa has been shooting since 1999. But the engineering graduate took up a job with an MNC in Canada, till his father’s advice changed the course of his career.

“When I was in Canada, I used to think there is no scope [for me],” he said. “There were a lot of youngsters who were very good at the course and very consistent shooters. Then, my father gave me a piece of advice, ‘If there’s something you are good at, you shouldn’t leave it.’ He is still winning medals at the state-level wherever he is playing.

Nanjappa added, “I thought I should give it a shot and purchased a pistol, just two or three days before the national competition in Canada. I participated and, without much training, equalled the national record. That’s when I thought maybe there is something left in me and decided to come back and try once more.”

The ideal story would be to say that he hasn’t looked backed since and continued gunning for glory. He did, to an extent, winning a World Cup medal in 2003.

Fighting back after facial paralysis

But on his way to another World Cup, Nanjappa was diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy. For a shooter, even partial facial paralysis would mean the end of the road. But he refused to give up this time as well, recovered to return only a year later and enjoyed what was arguably his best season. He reached two World Cup finals, won a Commonwealth silver in his first major multi-discipline event and followed it with team bronze medal 2014 Asian Games.

In 2015, he achieved a life-long dream when he won an Olympic quota place by finishing eighth in the finals of 50-metre pistol at the shooting World Cup in Gabala. He was set to become the oldest Indian Olympic debutant.

“Getting a quota was one of the first steps that I had planned and I was delighted that I got it in style,” he said. “But the actual journey started after that, there was a lot of planning, execution and implementation.”

He added, “With my effort, my knowledge and my father’s support, I did win the quota but I didn’t want to take a chance. In that context, I had approached this Korean coach Kim Seon-Il, who was a 12-time national coach. He was known for making champions and has refused many top shooters, but was kind enough to agree.”

Olympic medal still the goal

With the support of Olympic Gold Quest, he joined forces with the coach a month before the Games and there wasn’t enough time to work on all aspects. To add to that, the after-effects of a paralytic attack troubled him in Rio, as he finished 25th in the 50m pistol.

“That day the weather played spoilsport and I was not actually prepared for that kind of weather,” he said. “Because of the Bell’s Palsy, my eye starts watering if it gets really cold or windy and water is not able to go through the pore inside the eye, so it stays in the eye which caused a lot of problem while shooting.”

But the setback in Rio is far behind him now, as he is gunning for the 2020 Tokyo Games, where he hopes to qualify for the 10m air pistol, as 50m has been dropped. Before that, he also aims to make his mark at the Commonwealth and Asian Games next year.

“Now, I am focusing on the 10m because it’s in the Olympics. But that doesn’t mean I can give up on 50m, because it’s there in the Commonwealth Games, Asian, World Championship will all have free pistol,” he said.

One thing is clear, he has no intention of slowing down and is still focused on an Olympic medal, the one goal that brought him from a comfortable job in Canada to the shooting range in India.