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 Indiarsquos third medal in ParisYou 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 casePulses quickened hearts pounded and palms perspired There was no other wayThe threeposition event required athletes to factor in wind speed and consistency across all positions And Kusale had to deal with other uncontrollable factors his opponentsAfter the initial standing series he stood in fourth place Despite a subpar opening shot of 96 in the kneeling final a round typically highscoring he made an impressive recoveryThe 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 positionsAt one point he held second place but a subpar series with scores of 91 and 101 temporarily dropped him to fourth He rallied with impressive shots of 103 and 105 to reclaim his position and ultimately held that spotCall it a paradox Kusalersquos 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 76 caused him to fall out of medal contention His tendency to crumble under pressure led to a disappointing fourthplace finish at the 2022 World Championships in Cairo where he secured the Olympic quota for IndiaBut Thursday was different in every manner as Kusalersquos coach Deepali Deshpande put itldquoWe 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 thatrsquos 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 sicrdquo Deshpande told MidDayBesides 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 womenrsquos 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 OlympicsWhile Paris has bestowed upon Deshpande the sheer joy of triumph through wards Kusale and Babuta Tokyo three years ago offered her quite a different narrativeldquoThere is a natural technique you see Swapnil is a very fast shooter and he wants to get the job done fast Because itrsquos 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 deeprooted 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 placerdquo she addedHailing from Kolhapur Kusale is a man of few words but unreserved in articulating his ambitions after bagging bronze on ThursdayldquoI 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 Olympicsrdquo Kusale who was grinning from ear to ear when he stepped onto the top of the podium to collect his medal told reportersIndia 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 finelytuned South Korean or Chinese structure or the European excellence of Italy or Croatia Indian shooters have shown an uptick in this yearrsquos Olympics Three medals and countingThis time we have started so we wont stop Like shooters Indian shooting and everyone has supported a lot for shootingrdquo Kusale declared