Shooting World Championships: Late bloomer Akhil Sheoran, 28, wins men’s rifle 3-position bronze to secure Paris Olympics quota | Sport-others News

Everything has to be perfect.Be it kneeling, or the prone or standing, Akhil Sheoran likes to take his time before taking his shot. Seven men would take theirs and watch the camera pan to Sheoran, who ran on his own schedule.Sometimes, he wouldn’t be happy with the way his rifle would be set up and instead of gunning it and hoping for the best, Sheoran would lower his weapon, take a deep breath, shrug his shoulders once and then go again.
At the Baku Olympic Shooting Range – one built in 2015 and considered one of the windiest ranges in the world, Sheoran took his time, rode the wave that have been these World Championships, and came out on the other side with a memorable bronze medal and a Paris Olympics quota to boot. He missed out on a silver a sliver – 0.1 separating him and Petr Nymbursky, who had spent his World Championships chasing the Indian and finally caught up in the last shot.
To call his medal unlikely would be an understatement. Once every few years, Sheoran manages to pop up with an international medal. Blink and it almost feels like it never happened. At 28, many figured that the talent the shooter had, would be eclipsed his inconsencies. Two World Championship appearances prior to Baku saw him finish 44th and 43rd.

! 🤩
Akhil Sheoran of 🇮🇳 banks on his experience to clinch 🥉 in the Men’s 50m Rifle 3P at the 2023 ISSF World Championships.
The win ensures @WeAreTeamIndia an Olympic quota for the event at Paris 2024.#RoadToParis2024 pic.twitter.com/7CfCwbvZrr
— Olympic Khel (@OlympicKhel) August 20, 2023
And yet, on Sunday, he eclipsed Niraj Singh and the much-fancied Aishwary Singh Pratap Tomar. At 28, and despite so many chances, how did Sheoran even reach this stage at Baku? It started last November.
“He won the nationals last year. He then repeated those performances in the selection trials where he got better scores. He went to the Baku World Cup this year where he reached the finals but made makes in standing and finished eighth. In Bhopal, he missed the finals a point. These kinds of performances gave him confidence. Shooting well in good conditions is one thing, but when shooters show the same levels across all conditions…,” says his long-time coach, Deepali Deshpande.
Prior to this resurgence though, he was a marksman who did well in the juniors but couldn’t transition as well to the seniors. The technicalities of shooting weren’t the obstruction, rather his mind would be the culprit. Having tasted success as a junior, Deshpande believes that her ward simply couldn’t accept the change it takes to succeed in a tougher senior field. Shooting is a sport that can see a 15-year-old like Tilottama Sen come fourth and also see 50-year-olds participate at the highest levels. Levelling your game up is the only constant and psychologically, Sheoran took time to grow.

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What a terrific day it has been for our shooting contingent, with #TOPScheme athletes winning 3 medals and an for the country at ISSF World Championships 2023!
❇️ Phenomenal consency from Akhil Sheoran… pic.twitter.com/dsUJ6r6xx0
— Anurag Thakur (@ianuragthakur) August 20, 2023
“I felt like he always deserved to be in a position to be part of these big events. It’s quite frustrating as a shooter as well as for me as a coach when you know he has all the right ingredients but then for some reason that potential doesn’t materialise,” said Deshpande, who also coached Anjum Moudgil to a 10m air rifle silver World Championship medal.
Perfection, perfected
The resetting and fretting over a shot isn’t new for Deshpande. She has seen him go through the motions over the years, searching for the perfect aim to pull the trigger. That search for a good shot can sometimes be great, and sometimes can be part of a bigger problem.
“If there is any problem, he refuses to shoot. Sometimes it becomes difficult. I’ve had to tell him so many times, ‘Sometimes everything can’t be perfect, you have to make it perfect’. There have been times where he hasn’t finished a match because he was being too particular. Through those experiences, he has understood how to balance out these situations,” said Deshpande.

Our #TOPScheme Athletes Akhil Sheoran along with compatriots Aishwary Pratap Tomar & Niraj Kumar gave us another hit in Men’s 50m Rifle🔫 3P Team Event winning the 4⃣th🥇for 🇮🇳 at @issf_official #WorldChampionships 🥳
Many congratulations to all👏👏 pic.twitter.com/BpA4lxma7T
— SAI Media (@Media_SAI) August 20, 2023
On Saturday, those problems arose and they had been coming since the day before. Twenty-four hours before his match, Sheoran frantically called his coach up and said that there was something wrong in his standing position scores. Two days of prior training hadn’t cropped up a problem, but with a day to go an issue arose.
In such a situation, other than positive reinforcement, there really isn’t much that coaches can provide and all Deshpande had for him were words of encouragement.
In qualification, Sheoran had an excellent 97, 100 series in kneeling and an even better 98, 100 series in the prone position. And then the standing qualification happened. Trending around the second or third position, he quickly dropped after two 95 series’. But shooters after him struggled in the event as well and Sheoran would make his first World Championship final.

When he reached the final, he knew that whatever happens, the kneeling and prone positions were the events where he had to rack up the points. What followed was some elite shooting which saw him score 308.9 points in 30 combined kneeling and prone shots. Only the leader and eventual gold medall Alexander Schmirl of Austria was ahead of him on points at this stage. Standing would be where it would be everyone’s game.Most Read
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But the shooter from Baraut shot two series of five shots – and scored 49.2 and 51.2 – enough to keep him in medal contention. From this point on, every shot came with an elimination. Sheoran shot a 10.5, then a 10.2 and then a 10.5 again to keep a 0.5 lead over Nymbursky. But in his final shot, his dogged defence finally fell and he succumbed to a 9.5. Nymbursky shot a 10.1 and secured the silver.

Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar finished 13th with a score of 583 while Niraj Kumar finished with a score of 577.
Rhythm misses out
Earlier in the day, 25m pol shooter Rhythm Sangwan finished eight in her event and missed out on a quota. Sangwan had a dramatic entry into the finals, shooting an unprecedented 299/300 in the 25m rapid fire qualifications to make up for an underwhelming 284 in the 25m precision qualification stage. That momentum failed her in the final as she could only make eight out of her 20 shots and was the first to be eliminated.