Once A Med Student, Now Set For Olympics

SIFT KAUR SAMRA

She has cracked NEET, won gold at the Asian Games, and is set for the Olympics! Meet 22-year-old Sift Kaur Samra, a powerhouse of talent. An ‘accidental shooter,’ Sift left MBBS to pursue shooting on her parents' advice. Her journey began at nine when her cousin, a shotgun shooter, introduced her to the sport in Punjab. With parents from an agricultural background involved in the rice shelling business, Sift excelled in competitions and was selected for international events. At 18, she cleared the NEET exams and was a medical student at GGS Medical College, Faridkot. She dropped out after a year, choosing shooting over medicine. Samra broke the world record at the Asian Games, ending India’s 37-year-long wait for a medal in the women’s 3P category. Now, she's set for the Paris Olympics. Her success story drives home the point: manifest it, chase it, and do it.

Youngster Sift Kaur Samra showed the levels of her potential when she earned India the sixth Paris Olympic quota spot, despite missing the medal by finishing fifth in the Women’s 50m rifle three-positions event at the ISSF World Championship, on Monday. The young 21-year-old had previously won fold in her preferred event at the World University Games held in Chengdu and qualified for the final with a record score nationally scoring 589 points.

But despite her heroic effort, she could not overcome the challenge of the Chinese who won the gold and silver, with Zhang Qiongyue clinching the top podium finish with a finals score of 465.3 and her country-mate Han Jiayu bagging the silver with 463.5. American Sagen Maddalena won bronze, while Sift finished with a score of 429.1. “I am feeling so excited about winning the quota and it was really a fun match for me. The experience was really great, because my ‘kneeling’ position was not that good in qualification but my ‘standing’ was very good. I am proud of my ‘standing’ position today. It means a lot for me and the country as it’s the first 50m quota among women,” said the young shooter.

Samra had a ‘kneeling’ score of 192 and shot superb 199 and 198 in ‘prone’ and ‘standing’ positions in the qualifying round to aggregate 589. However in the finals, Samra slipped to eighth early on in the ‘kneeling’ position but pulled herself up in ‘prone’ and ‘standing’ to climb steadily to fifth. India have now won three Paris Olympic quota places at the Worlds here, with Mehuli Ghosh in the women’s 10m air rifle and Akhil Sheoran in the men’s 50m Rifle 3-Positions being the other two.

India are third on the medals table with four gold and three bronze medals behind powerhouses China and the USA. Overall, India have so far won six Paris quota places. Bhowneesh Mendiratta (men’s trap), Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil (men’s 10m air rifle) and Swapnil Kusale (men’s 50m rifle 3 positions) are the other three Indians to have secured the 2024 Olympic quota places at last year’s ISSF World Championship. The Indian trio comprising Samra (589), Ashi Chouksey (590) and Manini Kaushik (582) finished fifth in the team category with an aggregate of 1761.