A 15-year-old boy, Anish Bhanwala, Indian shooter, become India’s youngest gold medalist at Commonwealth Games 2018. He achieved the victory by making a record in men’s 25m rapid fire pistol event held at Belmont Shooting Centre.
At this young age, he proved himself and led many experienced shooters to come forward as the deserving champion. Australia’s Sergei Evglevski bagged the silver and on the other hand, the Bronze medal was taken by England’s Sam Gowin.
Neeraj Kumar was India’s another entrant in the event and was the second shooter to be eliminated in finals following a shoot off. Anish scored 580 in the qualifications while Neeraj scored with 579. In stage 1 Anish Bhanwala scored 286 and in stage 2 294. On the other hand, Neeraj scored 291 in Stage 1 and 288 in stage 2.
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At the final round, Anish required a perfect 5 to grasp gold, and he also did that well and shattered the games record. Now India has a total of six gold medals in shooting. All other who won the gold medal for India in Commonwealth games were Jitu Rai, Manu Bhaker, Heena Sidhu, Tejaswini Sawant along with Shreyasi Singh.
Anish told media’ I was under pressure however in the last series I scored five out of five. Thus my gold was confirmed. My objective is to improve the score, and I did that.’ When asked regarding the next step, Anish Bhanwala answered ‘the main aim is to finish in top five of World Championship to acquire Olympic Quota place but prior to it that is Asian Games.’
As the class X examination dates and shooting dates were overlapping, National Rifle Association of India wrote to CBSE and granted permission to take the class X examination of Anish Bhanwala the coming month. Prior this week Anish Bhanwala’s teammate Manu Bhaker also became youngest Indian Commonwealth Games gold medalist in 10m air rifle.
Extremely happy to learn that Anish Bhanwala who is just 15 years old has won the shooting GOLD in the 25m Rapid Fire Pistol event at #GC2018 Truly remarkable feat by the youngster #PresidentKovind
— President of India (@rashtrapatibhvn) April 13, 2018
More about Anish Bhanwala
Born on 26th September 2002, Anish Bhanwala loved this shooting sport. No one of his family has been in this field; however, at just seven years of age, his father bought him a pistol to shoot at a range in a school. He was very good as a student but had to compromise with his grades to get the excellence in shooting field. He also won gold medals at ISSF Junior World Cup along with ISSF Junior World Championships.
In 1998 Abhinav Bindra became India’s youngest contender at Commonwealth Games in the shooting. Now after 20 years Anish Bhanwala gained this status and also providing an encouraging hope for all Indian sports.
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