New Delhi. Shooter Swapnil Kusale is not superstitious but when his teammates Akhil Sheoran and Shriyanka Sadangi gifted him a bunch of keys to ward off the evil eye, he immediately accepted it before leaving for Paris for the Olympics. Luck did not favor Swapnil in many top tournaments, including the Asian Games in 2023 and the 2022 World Championships in Cairo, where he finished fourth by just one shot (a few decimal points). But in Paris, the 29-year-old Swapnil became the first Indian to win a bronze medal in the 50m rifle three position event at the Olympics.
Both Akhil and Sriyanka, who shoot in the 50m rifle 3 position, had secured Olympic quota places for the country but could not make it to Paris after the Olympic selection trials held by the National Shooting Association of India (NRAI). “Just before leaving for Paris, my best friends Akhil and Sriyanka came to meet me. They gifted me a keychain to protect me from the evil eye and said, ‘Bhai jeet ke aana hai’ (brother, I will come back victorious),” Swapnil says that this gift and the teachings given by personal coach Deepali Deshpande and elder sister-like Tejaswini Sawant played a huge role in his Olympic success.
Swapnil told PTI on Saturday, “I, Akhil and Shriyanka, the three of us have been together for many years and whenever I am in Delhi they take care of me. We have a strong bond. Akhil is like my brother and Shriyanka is like my sister. Whenever we are in camp or competition, we are like a family. We have spent many years together since junior days. ” Swapnil, who hails from Kolhapur in Maharashtra, says that former international rifle shooter Deepali’s hard work helped her achieve success in her first Olympics.
Swapnil, who missed a medal in the Hangzhou Asian Games last year due to just one bad shot, said, “Deepali Madam is like my second mother. She has seen me shooting since 2012. She knows what I want, when I get emotional or what makes me sad, what makes me happy. So this mother-son like relationship has been there since the beginning. She has understood every aspect of my shooting in detail.” Indian Railways TTE Swapnil said, “Teju Di (Tejaswini) is like my elder sister. She is an Olympian and a very experienced shooter. We both are from Kolhapur so we train together in Pune. If I make any mistake in shooting, she corrects it immediately.
