Shooting Sports in India

India’s first individual Olympic gold medal did not come from athletics or wrestling. It came from a 10-metre air rifle, at the Beijing 2008 Olympics. This article covers the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI), the sport’s governing body. It also covers India’s full Olympic shooting medal history, from 2004 through Paris 2024.

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Shooting Sports in India · Timeline

From a 1951 rifle club to Paris 2024’s record medal haul

1951

NRAI founded

G.V. Mavlankar, the first Lok Sabha Speaker, founds the National Rifle Association of India as the sport’s governing body.

2004

Athens: India’s first shooting medal

Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore wins silver in men’s double trap — India’s first-ever Olympic medal in shooting.

2008

Beijing: Bindra’s gold

Abhinav Bindra wins the men’s 10m air rifle — India’s first individual Olympic gold medal, in any sport.

2012

London: a two-medal Games

Vijay Kumar takes silver in 25m rapid fire pistol; Gagan Narang takes bronze in 10m air rifle.

2024

Paris: a record 3-medal haul

Manu Bhaker wins two bronzes; Swapnil Kusale wins one — after two straight Olympics (2016, 2020) with zero shooting medals.

2026

Suhl: the next wave arrives

India’s junior shooters top the ISSF Junior World Championship medal tally for the second edition running, with 25 medals.

The pattern: every senior breakthrough — 2004, 2008, 2012, 2024 — was followed by a barren Olympics before the next one. A junior pipeline this deep, shown again in 2026, is what NRAI is now betting on to break that cycle.

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📑 Contents

1Must Know
2Good to Know
3Test Yourself
4Great to Know
5Current Affairs

Must Know

The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) is the sport’s national governing body. G.V. Mavlankar, the first Speaker of the Lok Sabha, founded it on 17 April 1951.
NRAI is headquartered in New Delhi. It organizes national championships and trials, and selects India’s teams for the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, and Asian Games.
Abhinav Bindra won India’s first individual Olympic gold medal in 2008, in the men’s 10m air rifle event at Beijing. It remains India’s only individual Olympic gold in any sport.
As of the Paris 2024 Olympics, India has won 7 Olympic shooting medals in total: 1 gold, 2 silver, and 4 bronze.
Olympic shooting has three broad event categories: rifle, pistol, and shotgun. Every one of India’s Olympic shooting medals so far has come in a rifle or pistol event.

Good to Know

NRAI is affiliated with the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF), the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), and the Asian Shooting Confederation.
NRAI’s president is elected every four years. Elections follow the National Sports Development Code of India, 2011, under IOA oversight. As of 2026, Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo holds the post, elected in September 2024.
NRAI’s early presidents were major political figures, not sports administrators: G.V. Mavlankar, Govind Ballabh Pant, and Lal Bahadur Shastri all held the post before shooting had won India a single Olympic medal.
Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore won India’s first-ever Olympic shooting medal: a silver in men’s double trap, at Athens 2004.
At London 2012, Vijay Kumar won silver in men’s 25m rapid fire pistol. Gagan Narang won bronze in men’s 10m air rifle, the same Games.
India then won zero shooting medals at two straight Olympics: Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020. At Tokyo, only one Indian shooter reached a final, from a squad of 15.
The Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS), launched in 2014 by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, funds elite shooters as one of its “high-priority” Olympic sports.
Khelo India‘s talent pipeline feeds young shooters into NRAI’s junior programmes too, alongside state-run academies. Read more: GK0020 — Khelo India.

Test Yourself

Great to Know

Manu Bhaker’s individual bronze at Paris 2024, in women’s 10m air pistol, made her the first Indian woman to win an Olympic shooting medal.
Her second bronze came in the mixed 10m air pistol team event, with Sarabjot Singh. It made her the first Indian athlete since independence to win two medals at a single Olympic Games.
Bhaker’s road there was not smooth. A pistol malfunction ended her medal chances at Tokyo 2020. She had also fallen out publicly with her junior coach, Jaspal Rana, before that Olympics.
She reunited with Rana ahead of Paris 2024. Their renewed partnership is widely credited for her turnaround.
Paris 2024’s three shooting medals were India’s best-ever haul at a single Olympics, beating the two won at London 2012.
The pattern across 2004-2024 shows Olympic success clustering around individual breakthroughs — Rathore, Bindra, then Bhaker — rather than steady year-on-year growth. Two blank Olympics sat between London and Paris.

Current Affairs

30 July 2026: Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya felicitated two ISSF World Cup 2026 gold medallists, Esha Singh and Neeru Dhanda, in New Delhi.
- Neeru Dhanda, a Naib Subedar in the Corps of Military Police, became the first Indian woman trap shooter to win an ISSF World Cup gold, at Lonato, Italy. She set a new national qualification record of 121/125.
- Esha Singh won women’s 25m pistol gold at the Hangzhou World Cup, her second World Cup gold of the year in that event, edging past a strong Chinese challenge.
(Source: NE India Broadcast).
India topped the medal tally at the ISSF Junior World Championship 2026, held in Suhl, Germany, in June 2026. (Source: Olympics.com)
India won 25 medals in total: 7 gold, 8 silver, and 10 bronze. Four of those medals came on the championship’s final day, in the 50m pistol events.
This was India’s second consecutive edition topping this championship. At the previous edition, in Lima, Peru, India also finished first, with 24 medals.
The mixed 10m air rifle team of Abhinav Shaw and Shambhavi Kshirsagar won gold. Their score of 505.8 set a new junior world record. (Source: The Tribune)
Individual gold medallists included Sejal Kamble (women’s 10m air pistol), Sameer (men’s 25m rapid fire pistol), Rohit Kanyan (men’s 50m rifle three positions), Pritam Kendre (men’s 10m air rifle), and Abhinav Deshwal (men’s 25m standard pistol).
India’s medals spanned rifle and pistol events, across individual, team, and mixed-team categories.
On 12 June 2026, NRAI’s high-performance pistol coach Jaspal Rana died at age 49, of cardiac complications, at a Delhi hospital. He had fallen ill returning from the ISSF World Cup in Munich. (Source: The Federal)
Rana coached India’s junior national team from 2012, and mentored Manu Bhaker for most of her career. His death was mourned across Indian shooting, including by Bhaker herself.