The 18th edition of Asian Games is set to begin in Jakarta and Palembang on August 18, with 572 Indian sportspersons in contention for medals. After a successful Commonwealth Games, in which India finished third on the table with 66 medals – 26 gold, 20 silver and 20 bronze – the expectations from the Indian contingent are high.

Out of the 572 Indian sportspersons in Indonesia, 28 are shooters. Here are the profiles of the 10 rifle shooters in the squad.

3 Position

Sanjeev Rajput

Date of Birth: January 5, 1981

Event at Asian Games: Men’s Rifle 3 position

Past performance (if any): Silver - 10m air rifle team, 2010 Guangzhou

Bronze - 50m rifle 3 positions team, 2006 Doha

Bronze - 10m air rifle team, 2014 Incheon

Best performance so far: Gold, ISSF World Cup in Changwon in 2011
Gold, Commonwealth Games in 2018

Brief Description: Rajput was born in a small town of Haryana to a street-food vendor. He went on to join the Indian Navy, where he serves as the Master Chief Petty Officer II. He started his shooting career in 2001. Three years later, Rajput clinched three golds and a silver medal in the 2004 SAF Games.

Rajput then won gold at Commonwealth Shooting Championships in Melbourne in 50m rifle 3 positions pairs event in 2005. The year 2006 saw him winning his first CWG medal in his first appearance. He later clinched a bronze at the Asian Games in the same year. Rajput has won medals of all colours at the Commonwealth Games, his gold coming at the 2018 Gold Coast games with a games record score.

The shooter was conferred with the Arjuna Award in 2010. In 2016, Rajput had won India its 12th Rio Olympic quota place at the Asian Olympic qualifiers but was left out of the squad at the last minute as he had finished 0.66 points behind Gagan Narang in the qualifying system.

Akhil Sheoran

Date of Birth: July 23, 1995

Event at Asian Games: Men’s Rifle 3 position

Past performance (if any): N/A

Best performance so far: Gold, ISSF World Cup in Guadalajara in 2018

Brief Description: Akhil Sheroan is one of the young brigade in Indian shooting, translating his junior days success at the senior level. Coming from Uttar Pradesh, he has won a bronze medal in Asian Air Gun Junior Championships in China in December 2012. He followed it up with gold in the Junior category at the National Championships in Delhi in December 2012. He has been slowly climbing the ranks since then.

Early in 2018, he won his first senior-level gold dominating the Men’s 50m Rifle 3-Position final at the ISSF World Cup in Guadalajara, Mexico. This was his first World Cup appearance. He also has a silver in the Junior World Cup in 2015. In 2016, he missed the cut for Rio Olympics by a mere 1.2 points and didn’t make it to India’s Commonwealth Games squad.

Anjum Moudgil

Date of Birth: January 5, 1994

Event at Asian Games: Women’s Rifle 3 Positions

Past performance (if any): N/A

Best performance so far: Silver, ISSF World Cup in Mexico in 2017

Silver, Commonwealth Games in 2018

Brief Description: Anjum Moudgil started shooting in 2009 and has been part of the Indian squad across various age categories since 2010. She is currently ranked No 1 in India in the Women’s 50m 3-Position event, but has good results in all rifle events.

The youngster from Chandigarh showed her mettle by winning five gold medals at the Senior Nationals in Thiruvananthpuram at the end of 2017 but it is in 2018 that she had her best performance to date.

She went on to win a silver medal in 50m 3P at both the first ISSF World Cup of the year in Mexico as well as the Commonwealth Games in Australia.

She was initiated into shooting thanks to her interest in the National Cadet Corps, and her mother Shubh a former university-level shooter herself, introduced her to the basics of the sport.

Following her impressive performances in 2014-’15, she was selected to be a part of the Indian squad that travelled to the Shooting World Cups, which were qualifiers to the Olympics in Rio 2016, but she didn’t earn a quota place then.

She has won two gold medals at the 2016 SAFF Games and as well as a 10m Air Rifle silver and 50m prone bronze in the Commonwealth Shooting Championship.

Gaayathri Nithyanadam

Date of Birth: April 22, 1996

Event at Asian Games: Women’s Rifle 3 Positions

Past performance (if any): N/A

Best performance so far: Bronze, ISSF Junior World Cup in 2016

Brief Description: N Gaayathri has not had a huge impact on the senior international level as yet, but has showed her mettle in the national circuit. In 2016, the shooter from Coimbatore stormed to the national title in women’s 50m Rifle 3 Position, ahead of many experienced shooters. She had earlier clinched silver in the juniors. In 2015, she had gold in the juniors and a bronze in the senior.

The Tamil Nadu shooter had done well in the juniors, clinching two World Cup bronze medals in 2016. At the Junior World Cup in Gabala, Azerbaijan, she had won bronze in the 3P, in both the individual and team event. At the Junior World Cup in Suhl, Germany, she won the team gold and an individual bronze in the 50m Rifle Prone competition

At the Commonwealth Shooting Championships in Australia in 2017, she narrowly missed a medal finishing fourth. At KSS Memorial Shooting Championship earlier in 2018, she won the gold for Tamil Nadu.

Air Rifle

Ravi Kumar

Date of Birth: January 1, 1990

Event at Asian Games: men’s 10m air rifle, rifle mixed team

Past performance (if any): Bronze, men’s 10m air rifle team, 2014 Incheon

Best performance so far: Bronze, men’s 10m air rifle Commonwealth Games and ISSF World Cup in Mexico in 2018

Brief Description: Ravi Kumar, who will be playing in both 10m air rifle and mixed team, has been among India’s most consistent rifle shooters in the last year since winning his first international medal, a bronze at the Asian Airgun Championships in 2017. The shooter from Uttar Pradesh, who is affiliated with the Air Force, is the reigning national champion in the event as well.

At the 2014 Asiad, he was part of the team with Abhinav Bindra and Sanjeev Rajput that won the bronze medal in 10m air rifle.

The year 2018 has been a good one for him so far. In March, he bagged his first World Cup medal with a final score of 226.4 beating compatriot Deepak Kumar in a shoot-off in Mexico’s Guadalajara. In April, kept his nerves to win a shoot-off to bag the bronze medal in the men’s 10m Air Rifle event at the Commonwealth Games.

Deepak Kumar

Date of Birth: November 5, 1987

Event at Asian Games: men’s 10m air rifle

Past performance (if any): N/A

Best performance so far: Bronze, Commonwealth Championship in 2017

Brief Description: Deepak Kumar has been the most consistent 10m air rifle shooter after Ravi Kumar in the last year.

In 2017, he claimed a bronze medal in the 10m air rifle at Commonwealth Shooting Championships in Brisbane. He won his first ISSF World Cup medal in 2018, when he won the mixed team bronze with Mehuli Ghosh in Mexico. The pair, competing as India 2, shot 435.1 in the five team final to make the podium.

He narrowly missed out on an individual medal at the same World Cup, losing the bronze medal shoot-off to Ravi Kumar. He also got the bronze at the 18th KSS Memorial Shooting Championship in June 2018. At the Commonwealth Games, Deepak Kumar finished sixth in the final, after topping the qualification standings with a Games record of 627.2.

Apurvi Chandela

Date of Birth: January 4, 1993

Event at Asian Games: women’s 10m air rifle, rifle mixed team

Past performance (if any): Finished 13th in qualification in 2014, Incheon

Best performance so far: Gold, Commonwealth Games 2014

Brief Description: Apurvi Chandela is India’s foremost female shooters since the last few years. She had her first big breakthrough on the international stage when she won the gold at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow with a games record score in qualification and in the finals.

However, she first made her name on the Indian shooting circuit when she became the national champion 2012, in her first year in the senior circuit. The Rajasthan girl had taken up rifle shooting in 2008 inspired by Abhinav Bindra’s Olympic gold medal.

She won her first ISSF World Cup medal in 2015 when she bagged the bronze medal and an Olympic quota place in Changwon, South Korea. In the process, she became the first Indian woman to qualify for the 2016 Rio Olympics, where she finished 34th in qualification. She had also once broken the world record for the finals round when she shot 211.2 to win gold at the Swedish Cup back in 2016.

In 2018, she won the bronze at the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast. But she narrowly missed her first World Cup gold in a dramatic fashion when finished fourth at the ISSF World Cup in Munich. She shot a shock 5.9 that saw her drop from gold-medal position in a strange turn of events.

Elavenil Valarivan

Date of Birth: August, 2 1999

Event at Asian Games: Women’s 10m air rifle

Past performance (if any): N/A

Best performance so far: Gold, ISSF Junior World Cup in Sydney in 2018

Brief Description: In a span of one year, teenager Elavenil Valarivan has made rapid progress to break into India’s Asian Games squad as the second rifle shooter in the most competitive category of women’s shooting in the country.

In December 2017, the Ahmadabad-based shooter was a surprise national champion when she bagged the senior gold ahead of many seasoned campaigners. A month earlier, she had topped the National selection.

In 2018, she continued the medal rush on the international stage, with back-to-back World Cup golds. She won her first at the ISSF Junior World Cup in Sydney, in only her second ISSF event with a new Qualification World Record score of 631.4 points. She followed it up with another in Suhl.

She has also won a bronze medal at the FISU World Shooting Sport Championship as well as a gold at the Shooting Hopes junior international championship in Plzen.

On the national circuit, she shot 253.0 in the final, which is higher than the current world record of 252.4, to clinch the first place in the both 10m air rifle senior and junior category at the selection trials ahead of the Asian Games in June. While it won’t be counted as a record, because it wasn’t a world or continental event, it shows the depth the Gagan Narang protégé possesses.

Standard Rifle

Harjinder Singh

Date of Birth: March 23, 1990
Event at Asian Games: 300m standard rifle

Amit Kumar

Date of Birth: January 1, 1987
Event at Asian Games: 300m standard rifle