Paris Olympics 2024: EXCLUSIVE | ‘It all paid dividends today’: Coach Deshpande celebrates as Swapnil Kusale lands India’s third medal

Swapnil Kusale went one better on Thursday as he turned a blind eye to his past demons to bring home the bronze in the 50m rifle three positions event and land India's third medal in Paris.

You could tell as he turned around toward the Indian crowd with a confident smile, knowing, before it was even announced, that he would not exit the range without a medal. Only several moments earlier, this was not the case.

Pulses quickened, hearts pounded, and palms perspired. There was no other way!

The three-position event required athletes to factor in wind speed and consistency across all positions. And Kusale had to deal with other uncontrollable factors - his opponents.

After the initial standing series, he stood in fourth place. Despite a subpar opening shot of 9.6 in the kneeling final, a round typically high-scoring, he made an impressive recovery.

The medal did not come easy, as Kusale ascended from sixth place after the kneeling stage to fifth after the prone stage, positioning himself for a medal during the standing phase, the most precarious of the three positions.

At one point, he held second place, but a subpar series with scores of 9.1 and 10.1 temporarily dropped him to fourth. He rallied with impressive shots of 10.3 and 10.5 to reclaim his position and ultimately held that spot.

Call it a paradox, Kusale's tendency to get impatient in pressure situations has proved costly in the past, particularly with the devastating loss at the Asiad, where he was in first place before a single shot scoring 7.6 caused him to fall out of medal contention. His tendency to crumble under pressure led to a disappointing fourth-place finish at the 2022 World Championships in Cairo, where he secured the Olympic quota for India.

But Thursday was different in every manner, as Kusale's coach Deepali Deshpande put it.

"We had a bitter experience in 2022. He missed out on a World Championships medal due to one bad shot in standing. In kneeling, he shot a very bad shot, and he came out of medal contention. The same happened in the Asian Games. He was leading for gold, and suddenly he came fourth. Today, the standing series is very important, he has worked on it a lot in the past. We had decided to work on this position because that's a decisive one. And you can see, it all paid dividends today. He picked up in the standing position today, otherwise at one time, he was in sixth position (sic)," Deshpande told Mid-Day.

Besides Kusale, Deshpande serves as the personal coach to Arjun Babuta (who finished fourth in the 10m air rifle), Sift Kaur Samra, and Anjum Moudgil (in the women's 3P). Additionally, she trained Akhil Sheoran and Shreyanka Sadangi (both in 3P), who had secured quotas but were unable to advance through the trials to join the Indian shooting team for the Olympics.

While Paris has bestowed upon Deshpande the sheer joy of triumph through wards Kusale and Babuta, Tokyo three years ago offered her quite a different narrative.

"There is a natural technique you see. Swapnil is a very fast shooter, and he wants to get the job done fast. Because it's an outdoor event, if you are committing an error, you become so engrossed with it, that you commit it anyway. And that shot goes wrong. We had to work on that aspect. At times, it is deep-rooted, because you developed a habit like that. To break that rhythm and rebuild it took a lot of time. Happy that it all fell in place," she added.

Hailing from Kolhapur, Kusale is a man of few words, but unreserved in articulating his ambitions after bagging bronze on Thursday.

"I have worked hard for so many years and achieved a level here. Even after this, I will work hard, and I will make the country proud in the next Olympics," Kusale, who was grinning from ear to ear when he stepped onto the top of the podium to collect his medal, told reporters.

India, renowned for its sharpshooters like Arjuna and Eklavya, is naturally inclined towards target shooting sports. While it may not yet match the precision of a finely-tuned South Korean or Chinese structure, or the European excellence of Italy or Croatia, Indian shooters have shown an uptick in this year's Olympics. Three medals and counting!

"This time we have started, so we won't stop. Like shooters, Indian shooting and everyone has supported a lot for shooting," Kusale declared.