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Shooting: How Charlie Mackesy’s book helped Arjun Babuta overcome Paris Olympics heartbreak and win silver at World Cup | Sport-others News

Months after he finished up fourth in the men’s 10m air rifle final in Paris Olympics, Arjun Babuta would receive the author Charlie Mackesy’s picture book The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse from his coach Deepali Deshpande. The picture-book, which was later made into an 2023 Oscar winning animated short film, revolved around the idea of love, hope, friendship and the courage of asking for help with the storyline involving a boy getting lost in winter wilderness and crossing paths with a mole, a fox and a horse and eventually choosing to stay with his new friends. As Babuta clinced Silver, his first international medal, just 0.1 points behind eventual gold medal winner Sheng Lihao — who won gold at Paris Games — in the men’s 10m air rifle final in ISSF World Cup in Peru, Deshpande’s mind was taken to the book she gifted to Babuta.
“It was a different Arjun post the fourth place finish in Paris. For some months, he was searching for answers and would even shut himself from shooting, which he always loved. But then we all, including him, knew that he had to come back to love shooting the way he used to. During those days, I gifted him the picture book The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse. At the end of the book, the boy finds solace in the company of his friends and does not go back to his village. And with this silver medal, I would say Arjun has again found shooting again,” says national shooting coach Deshpande while speaking from Peru with The Indian Express.
In the final on at Las Palmas Shooting range in Lim, with two more shots to decide the gold medal between him and Lihao, Babuta would shoot a 10.3 with the Chinese coming with a perfect 10.9. Then Lihao will shoot a 10.3 before Babuta would follow it with a 10.5 as the Chinese won the gold medal with a margin of 0.1 points. “Well, winning the silver of course here means that I have put the demons of the finals behind. But then if you ask me in real terms, then I would say it’s just something which I was doing before and I am seeing this medal with a perspective of it coming as a result of the process I have followed in the last few months and of course all these years of training,” shares Babuta while speaking with The Indian Express.
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After the Paris heartbreak, the Punjab youngster would take a two-month break from the sport. According to Babuta, at one point he even thought of donating the rifle to someone else before he picked up the book gifted Deshpande. “Post Olympics I was lost psychologically. It was very painful. The book which Deepali mam gifted me, it taught me it’s okay to feel lost and to make a comeback. Sometimes, we attach materialic things to our performance. Like a reward or medal. But then it took me a long time to realise that it was just a match. And to realise that it’s the greed for fame or medals, which also gives us pain. I have accepted it is okay to fail,” Babuta says.
Now, with silver in Peru it now feels a completely different world for Babuta. “When I first picked this rifle post the Paris Olympics after two months, I could not even complete ten shots. I was in such pain that I packed the rifle and thought of donating. When I change this rifle in the coming months, I will frame this at my home to help me remember the journey,” he says.
The Peru redemption
While he had shot a total of 630.1 in Paris to qualify at the seventh spot for the final, Saturday saw him shoot a qualification score of 631.9 to finish fourth behind Lihao, Hegg and Patil. Deshpande could sense the changes Babuta would try in the last stages of the qualification. “His scores were low in his last three shots in the qualification stage here. He told me that he was focussing on those three shots like he would do in the final. He had never done that so it was good to see him trying new things in qualification as well,” says Deshpande.
Babuta would begin the eight-shooter final with a score of 1105.4 at the end of the second series to be placed third behind Peni and Hegg. But with the difference between the top three being only 0.3 points and Patil at the fourth spot followed Lihao in fifth, Babuta needed to make sure that he remained in the top three or four once the two-shot elimination series began. While Patil would lose his first shot with the jury ruling that the Indian shot before the range officer’s call and not taking his second shot to be eliminated, Babuta made sure that none of his shots in the seven elimination series including the gold medal deciding series went below 10.3. While Lindgren would finish fourth, Babuta would edge out van Peni after the penultimate elimination series to be 0.3 points ahead of Lihao. “He has now learnt not to worry about his scores much. Previously, he would always seek answers saying Mam, yeh kyun hua or yeh kaise hua, which is also good in a way. But then now, he has reached that stage where he knows it’s all in his hands and his practice. And this approach is working for him. So if you compare today’s final, which was at par or even more competitive than the one in Paris, Arjun shot with a free mind and without any fear,” says the coach.
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In the first shot of the gold medal elimination series, Lihao shot 10.9, taking a 0.3 point lead over Babuta with one shot remaining. Then the Chinese came up with a 10.3 off his last shot while Babuta shot a 10.5 as Lihao won the gold medal. Thomas Farnik, India’s foreign coach for rifle shooting also talked about the work he did with Babuta for the finals. “Our focus has been the difference between the last breath and the shot should be very small. You focus more on the preparation of the shot and then you try to execute it meaning that the aiming time on the ten area is very short. That helps staying in focus because the rifle is not very stable in such moments and you need to set up and make the balance, which helps,” said Farnik.

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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