How shooter Vijayveer Sidhu won India’s first gold in 25m rapid fire at world cup: A secret diary entry, improving his slow-fire shots and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan | Sport-others News

Nusrat Fateh Ali and Ghulam Ali Khan were Vijayveer Sidhu’s aural celebration after winning India’s first world cup gold in 25m Rapid Fire in Argentina. But not everything was music to ears at the start of the season. He had felt a “bit clueless” without “new challenge” and decided to ink a goal for himself. In his diary, Sidhu, who had finished 9th in 25m rapid fire in Paris Olympics, jotted down ‘to become India’s first world cup gold medall in 25m Rapid Fire’. And he achieved exactly that on Tuesday night, edging out Italian Ricardo Mazzetti in the six-shooter final.
“In recent months, I found myself a bit clueless as there was no new challenge. I was shooting well and my technique was right. As shooters, we often face these kinds of situations. Hence I wrote down these lines in my diary. Just for that extra push,” Sidhu told The Indian Express from Argentina.
There is one more medal now for him to trigger some fun-bragging rights with his twin and his “best competitor” Udhayveer Sidhu.
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“Right from our early days, I had my best competitor and friend at my home. On the shooting range, we both will fight it out for our spots or medals but post the competitions, we spend hours telling each other about our makes. But then at the trophy cabinet, each one would also be possessive about each’s medal placed over the cabinet (laughs),” says Sidhu.  A native of Mansa in Punjab, Sidhu’s family had shifted to Mohali in 2015. Though his father passed away in 2017 due to a sudden illness, the brothers persed with their sporting dreams under the guidance of coach DS Chandel.
Vijayveer Sidhu after winning the gold medal.(ISSF)
He had finished ninth in qualification in Paris olympics with a score of 583. “I don’t see the Paris Olympics as a disappointment. I only see it as something to motivate myself. If you see my scores post the Delhi World Cup in 2021, except for the Munich World Cup, I was hitting close to 580. So why would somebody expect me to make it to the final of the Olympics? I mean if I could have shot my best that day, I could have made it to the final but then my international form at that time did not suggest that. And why would I be disappointed?,” remembers Sidhu.
On Monday, a day before the final in Argentina, Sidhu spent some time with his coach Rio Olympian Gurpreet Singh, who in fact was leading in the competition at that stage. “Gurpreet Sir has been a competitor as well as my coach and room-mate. Today, he was standing behind me to watch my second qualification round even though he was next to shoot with him being in the lead.” Singh has been training Sidhu for  the last two years. In an event where shooters are required to shoot two series each of five shots in eight seconds, six seconds and four seconds on the first day followed the same series on second day in qualification, Singh remembers Sidhu needing some refinement in his slow-fire shots.
“We worked on his slow-fire shots as he was very good in four-second five shots. So the focus was to shoot the six-seconds and eight-seconds five shots,” says Gurpreet Singh.Story continues below this ad
In Buenos Aires, in the six-shooter final, Mazzetti was on top of the leaderboard after the first four series with 14 hits with a shot above 9.7 being counted as hit. Sidhu though made a slow start as he made only one hit in his first series but then shot three consecutive series of four hits each to be placed second behind the Italian with 13 shots. Sidhu then shot a perfect five in the fifth series to take a two-point lead over the Italian before they were tied at 21 at end of the sixth series. He and Mazzetti were then tied at 25 each before Sidhu shot four in the last series with three hits to clinch the gold.
“The conditions here were very windy. So the challenge was to maintain the body balance in windy conditions while shooting rapid fire shots within four seconds. So to counter that, I had to make the body balanced using the force of the body muscles and shoot. The perfect five series came when it was most windy, but then I saw it as another challenge,” says Sidhu.
The youngster also has been working on reducing his movement in the slow shot series. “I idolise three-time Olympic medall and Paris Olympics gold medall Chinese Li Yuehong. I am also a moving shooter like him though we are not that similar. I have been working on reducing my movement in slow shots in recent months to improve my scores in qualification. One has to find a right balance on how to shoot for eight seconds, six seconds and four seconds shots and that’s key for success in this event,” says Sidhu. And then Ghulam Ali and Nusrat can take over.

Nitin Sharma is an Assant Editor with the sports team of The Indian Express. Based out of Chandigarh, Nitin works with the print sports desk while also breaking news stories for the online sports team. A Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award recipient for the year 2017 for his story ‘Harmans of Moga’, Nitin has also been a two-time recipient of the UNFPA-supported Laadli Media Awards for Gender Sensitivity for the years 2022 and 2023 respectively.

Nitin mainly covers Olympics sports disciplines with his main interests in shooting, boxing, wrestling, athletics and much more. The last 17 years with The Indian Express has seen him unearthing stories across India from as far as Andaman and Nicobar to the North East. Nitin also covers cricket apart from women’s cricket with a keen interest. Nitin has covered events like the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the 2011 ODI World Cup, 2016 T20 World Cup and the 2017 AIBA World Youth Boxing Championships.

An alumnus of School of Communication Studies, Panjab University, from where he completed his Masters in Mass Communications degree, Nitin has been an avid quizzer too. A Guru Nanak Dev University Colour holder, Nitin’s interest in quizzing began in the town of Talwara Township, a small town near the Punjab-Himachal Pradesh border. When not reporting, Nitin’s interests lie in discovering new treks in the mountains or spending time near the river Beas at his hometown. … Read More

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