Gagan Narang has won many medals and awards as a shooter. But the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar that was awarded to his foundation—Gagan Narang Sports Promotion Foundation—is special for him because it is a recognition not just of his work, but his entire team’s. On Thursday, the 2008 Olympic Games bronze medallist received the award from President Ram Nath Kovind on behalf of the foundation that has trained around 50 international shooters.
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Narang spoke to HT about the growth of his foundation, which runs the Gun for Glory academy which now has 16 centres in eight states, his own ambition of having another go at the Olympics and the tremendous growth the sport has seen in the last few years. Excerpts
How does it feel to get the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar for your foundation?
Very satisfying, in the sense that the kind of difficulties that we faced earlier. Things have been changing — things have been improving in terms of getting medals and stuff like that. It’s a very satisfying feeling after getting something like this...I have won a lot of medals and awards but this is special because it is for our whole team. This is a boost for the youngsters, it will help us fuel our dream of carving out future Olympians.
How has Gun for Glory grown over the years?
We never thought of expansion when we started initially. Later, when we had so many people coming from different states to train in Pune, that’s when we thought that maybe we should broad-base and make it (more) accessible. Instead of people coming here, maybe we should go to the people. We thought of a plan that maybe we could open small branches, maybe not for all events but say just air rifle and pistol events in various places so that we can give access to people within their own city and town and then in 2013 we started expanding.
We have 16 centres now in eight cities and about 30-odd coaches.
What do you think has led to this growth in shooting sport as such?
One thing is that the federation and the government have ensured less procedural hassle in terms of (procuring) equipment because almost nothing is made in India. Because of that people are able to access sports goods faster. Also, this is a very individual sport, everything depends on your own performance. It’s also a very mental sport and not so physically demanding initially. So, lot of people see advantage in taking to this sport to build up mental health as it teaches you how to focus, how to concentrate.
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As the number of participants at the junior and senior level has gone up, what else should be done to harness this interest into medals?
Shooting as a sport has its own challenges. For example one is the infrastructure and the second is equipment. You have to spend on the infrastructure (shooting range) and the equipment. If you buy a rifle for ~2-2.5 lakh, maybe two or three people can share it.
That is a major challenge. We are working on this by subsidising through my foundation and hopefully in the next few years we will be able to make a breakthrough in reducing the cost of the equipment. That is the major constraint that needs to be changed to take it to the next level.
What are your future plans for your foundation and academy?
We want to make the sport more accessible and eventually it will translate in building an ecosystem for the sport. Number two, the ecosystem will in turn churn out champions. That is the motivation on which everybody in the foundation works on, and to eventually win an Olympic medal. We have won medals at all levels and (I am sure), we will be able to do so at the Olympic level also.
You still want to compete at the international level, after shooting at four Olympic Games. Any aims of qualifying for Tokyo?
I am still competing and want to compete and have started training for eight months. I am shooting fairly well right now. But I am staying in the present and taking things one at a time. So, if it comes, then it comes. If you have to qualify, you have to perform and if the performance is good enough, then it will be.
