Rahi Sarnobat

Some Lesser Known Facts About Rahi Sarnobat

• She decided to choose shooting as her career in 2007.

  

• In 2008, she bagged her first gold medal at the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune, India.

  

• In 2010, she secured two golds at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India.

• She considers 50m rifle prone world champion, ‘Tejaswini Sawant‘ (a fellow Maharashtrian) her source of inspiration.

• After winning bronze in the 2011 World Cup, she got selected for the 2012 London Olympics.

• She bagged the gold in 25m pistol event at the ISSF World Cup; held in Changwon in 2013 and went on to become the first Indian pistol shooter to win a gold medal in a world cup.

  

• She secured gold in women’s 25-meter pistol at the 2014 Commonwealth Games; held in Glasgow.

• In the 2014 Asian Games Incheon (South Korea), she bagged a bronze medal in the 25-meter pistol with her teammates Heena Sidhu and Anisa Sayyed.
  

  

   

• In May 2015, Rahi’s name was recommended for the Arjuna Award (a prestigious award presented by the Government of India and Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports for extraordinary achievement in sports) by the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI).

• In 2015, Rahi suffered a severe elbow injury. In an interview, she stated that:
  

   “It was a depressing phase. The injury happened in 2015 end, but I was still hopeful of shooting in the Rio Games. I wanted to shoot in the 2016 Games Qualifiers. Despite being injured, I shot in the qualifiers. I realized my mistake later as the injury got worse,”

  but she could not make it to the Rio Games and had to take a break for a year.

View this post on Instagram

The pleasure is here in every single shot. #comeback after the rehab of almost a year

A post shared by Rahi Sarnobat (@sarnobatrahi) on Jan 22, 2017 at 9:41pm PST

• Rahi roped in Munkhbayar Dorjsuren (a Mongolian-German sports shooter who won gold at 2009 ISSF World Cup, 25-metre pistol) to get trained.

  

• On 22 August 2018, she became the first Indian woman to win gold at the 2018 Jakarta Palembang in Women’s 25-meter pistol event and shot a Games Record of 34.

• In 2018, Maharashtra Government announced ₹50 Lakhs for Rahi after her victory in the Asian Games.

• She has also been coached by Anatolii Piddubnyi.

• On 25 September 2018, the Government of India conferred Rahi Sarnobat with the Arjuna Award.