‘Will do my best at Olympics’

Budding woman shooter Apurvi Chandela, who bagged the 10m air rifle gold at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, is raring to go at the 2016 Rio Games and repeat the feat she is best known for. Apurvi has not looked back ever since she won the highest prize at Glasgow, having qualified for the Rio Olympics and she is preparing to give it her best shot.

“Right now I am following the plan that my coach (Stanislav Lapidus) has made. I have a few major tournaments coming up. I have two (ISSF) World Cups before the Olympic Games and I am preparing for them.” Apurvi told this paper.

The 23-year-old last appeared at the ISSF World Cup held in Rio where she could not qualify for the finals, finishing 20th with a score of 415.7.

“Two other Indian shooters, Pooja Ghatkar (417.2) and Ayonika Paul (416.4) finished higher than her, though neither could qualify for the finals as well.

“During my event I was basically focusing on technique, whatever I had prepared I wanted to put that on but somewhere, it did not go the way I wanted. I’ll make sure it does not happen again. I’ll try my best and train for that,” said Apurvi on the sidelines of an event in the capital on Saturday.

There are five ISSF tournaments in all before the Rio Games finally kick off, but Apurvi is focusing on two World Cups.

“I will not be playing the open competitions but the two World Cups — one in Munich and the other in Baku, Azerbaijan — are what I am preparing for as of now,” she said.

Former national shooting coach Lapidus is now her personal coach along with Chain Singh and London Olympics bronze medallist Gagan Narang. So what value does he add to the preparations

“He has made a few plans. We have some training camps coming up before the World Cups. I am going to Germany next month and will be there for about 20 days. It’s going well and hope it continues just like that,” she added.