Hopefully Indian shooters will improve their performance this time, suggests Heena Sidhu

The youngsters in the Indian shooting contingent such as Manu Bhaker, who will compete alongside Heena Sidhu in the women’s air pistol event, Abhishek Verma, and Saurabh Chaudhary are all part of a fresh group of kids who are eager to leave their mark in the upcoming Asian Games. With such drive and passion, a lot is expected of the Indian shooters that will travel to Indonesia for next month’s quadrennial Asian centerpiece.

And Sidhu, who won CWG gold medal in Delhi and Gold Coast earlier this year, said that the Indian shooting contingent has certainly improved this time around and hoped to come back to India with more medals than they did in 2014.

“This is another opportunity to do that to improve my performance. I have got two medals in the Asian Games, both team medals. Hopefully, we will improve our performance this time, maybe even get a gold. 

“I have seen the performance of the Indian team, I have trained with them so I know where we went wrong the last time and how we have come from there. Everybody has improved so overall I expect a much better performance. I can’t say about the medals but as a team, the scores will come up,” Sidhu told reporters.

At the 2014 Incheon Games, the Indian shooters returned with just one gold medal when Jitu Rai won the gold medal in the 50m pistol event. However, a bright and skilled group of young talent who proved themselves at this year’s ISSF junior World Cup in Suhl, Germany gave Sidhu some form of hope to do better this time around. However, The 25m air pistol Commonwealth champion pointed out that although improved performances and better scores might be a good sign it did not necessarily guarantee medals given the tougher field at the Asian Games.

“Asian Games is comparatively tougher than the Commonwealth Games. I am hopeful that this time will be better.

"But athletes cannot guarantee a medal. You can only go there and perform, medals are a very subjective and comparative thing that happens at the end of a good performance. Our job is to give a good performance, improve your score and that is what I plan to do,” Sidhu added.