Indian shooter Manish Narwal clinched the country’s third gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics on Saturday while competing in the shooting P4 Mixed 50m pistol event. Narwal’s teammate Singhraj clinched silver to bag his second medal. While Narwal shot a total of 218.2, recording a Paralympic best, Singhraj Adhana shot 216.7.
Born in Faridabad, Haryana, 19-year-old Narwal started pistol shooting in 2016 as he couldn’t pursue his dream sport– football– because of a congenital ailment due to which he cannot lift his right hand.
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“My father took me to the TenX shooting academy in Ballabgarh, run by coach RakeshThakur. Had he not been there, I wouldn’t have excelled in the sport. I owe my success to him,” Manish told Times of India in 2018.
Manish qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics along with Deepender Singh and Singhraj Adhana after a rich medal tally at the World Shooting Para-Sport in Chateauroux in France that included an individual gold in men’s 10m air pistol SH1 category, two gold in 10m air pistol and 50m free pistol team events and a bronze in 50m free pistol SH1 .
Prior to that, he had won an individual silver and team gold (both 10m air pistol) at the Bangkok para-shooting World Cup in 2017. He also won a silver medal (10m air pistol) at the 2017 Dubai World Cup and five gold medals at the 2017 para Nationals in Kerala.
At the 2016 para Nationals in Pune, Narwal won three gold (10m air pistol) medals, one each in the youth, junior and senior categories. Narwal won gold (10 m air pistol) and silver (50 m free pistol) at the 2018 Para-Asian Games in Jakarta.
Narwal clinched the gold in the P4 mixed 50m pistol SH1 event of the 2021 Para Shooting World Cup by finishing with 229.1 points to break the previous world record of Serbia’s Rastko Jokic (228.6).