Anish Bhanwala

Some Lesser Known Facts About Anish Bhanwala

• Anish Bhanwala is an Indian shooter from Karnal, Haryana.

• He developed his interest in shooting after his participation in modern pentathlon events. 

• At the age of 11, he represented India at U-12 Modern Pentathlon World Championships.

• He went to Delhi to have the best facilities and environment to practice his shooting.

• He was featured in the newspaper when he was able to catch the thief, who had stolen a racing bicycle from outside his house. 

• In 2015, he participated in the Asian Modern Pentathlon Championship.

• He has a full support of his parents in his sports career despite no one in his family comes from a sports background. His father also quit his practice and had sold all his assets in Karnal just to give the best possible and superior quality of training to their children.

• In his school time, his father borrowed him a pistol to shoot at a range in Karnal.

• In 2017, he got two gold, two silver, and one bronze for India at the ISSF Junior World Championship, Suhl. He has also set a world record score of 579 at the event. 

• He was also awarded a silver medal in 25m Rapid Fire Men at 2017 Commonwealth Shooting Championships.

• Due to his full focus on representing India in the ISSF World Cup in Mexico, CBSE also agreed to take his class 10 examination separately afterwards, so that his studies didn’t get affected.

• In 2018, he was honoured at Mahindra Scorpio TOISA(Times of India Sports Award) with an award for Emerging Player Of The Year. Anish was selected by the jury for his meteoric performance in 2017 and the jury members were- Abhinav Bindra, Devendra Jhajharia, Bhaichung Bhutia, Gautam Gambhir, and Reeth Abraham, along with the Chief Editor of Times Internet Ltd, Rajesh Kalra. 

• The same year, he won one individual Gold and one team silver in the event- 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Junior Men at the ISSF Junior World Cup 2018.

• At Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, he carved a niche for himself by becoming the youngest Indian athlete to win a gold medal in the Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Event. He shot down the records in the final by scoring 30 with four series of 5 each. 

• In an interview with The Indian Express, he told about his vision of grabbing medals next in the world championships in South Korea and Asian Games in Indonesia.

• Here’s a video showcasing the joy and happiness of Anish after winning the gold medal: