| Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nationality | Indian | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 9 November 2005 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Country | India | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sport | Shooting | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Palak Gulia (born 9 November 2005) [1] is an Indian sport shooter from village Nimana, Jhajjar, Haryana. She competes in the 10m air pistol discipline. She is part of the Indian shooting team at the Asian Games, Hangzhou, China. [2]
Palak hails from Nimana village in Jhajjar district, Haryana. She started shooting as a hobby before taking up the sport seriously at the age of 13 years, at the Faridabad shooting range under coach Rakesh Singh. [3] Her father Joginder Singh is a businessman and she has two younger siblings, twins, a brother and a sister. Her father shifted the family from Gurugram to Faridabad to support her training. She took up pistol event, since her coach coaches only in that discipline. [3]
Palak set the Asian Games record of 242.1 points in the 10m air pistol final on September 29. After recovering from a shoulder injury last year, she start her preparations for the Asian Games in mid 2022. She started travelling with her coach to the two ranges in Ballabgarh and Faridabad where his coach Rakesh Singh used to run academies. She increased her daily shots to 200 and focussed on her mental health. In the 2022 Asian Games qualification, she finished 7th and squeezed into the final eight. In the finals, she stood third scoring 49.9 after the first series as she dropped two of the five shots below 10. Her roommate in the Games Village, Esha Singh, was leading and after the second series, Palak took up second spot with 50.8 points. In the elimination stage, she took the lead beating Esha by 2.4 points and set a New Asian Games record. [3] She also won a silver medal in the 10m air pistol team event along with Divya T.S. and Esha Singh.
Palak won the Asian Games gold in the 10m air pistol with an Asian Games record and added another silver in the team event. [4] India won both gold and silver in the women 10m air pistol event with Esha Singh finishing second. She trains with the support of Reliance Foundation. [5]
In June 2023, Palak won the gold in the 10m air pistol event in the 21st Kumar Surendra Singh pistol championship at the Madhya Pradesh Academy in Bhopal. [6] Later in August, she took part in the team event at the ISSF World Shooting Championships at Baku, Azerbaijan, a qualifying event for Olympics but failed to make the mark. [7]
Earlier in 2022, she was part of the Indian women team that won silver in the 10m air pistol team event at the Shotgun and Rifle/Pistol World Championships in Cairo, Egypt. [8] On 11 May 2022, she won gold at the ISSF Junior Cup in Suhl, Germany. [9]
In 2021, she finished 6th in the 10m air pistol and 4th in the junior class but missed the finals due to malfunction. [3]
Honorary Captain Vijay Kumar Sharma, AVSM, SM is an Indian sport shooter. He won the silver medal in the individual 25 metre rapid fire pistol event at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Kumar hails from Barsar village of Hamirpur district of Himachal Pradesh and is a retired Subedar Major in the Dogra Regiment Indian Army, who was later promoted to Honorary Captain Rank. Vijay Kumar is supported by the Olympic Gold Quest initiative. He is the only Indian to have won a medal at 25m rapid Fire Pistol. He has been posted at Indian Army Marksmanship Unit (AMU) Mhow since 2003 where he is being coached by the Russian Pavel Smirnov.
Heena Sidhu is an Indian sport shooter. On 7 April 2014, Sidhu became the first Indian pistol shooter to reach number one in world rankings by the International Shooting Sport Federation. In 2013, Sidhu became the first Indian pistol shooter to win a gold medal in an ISSF World Cup finals when she won the 10-metre air pistol event. In 2014, Sidhu was the World record holder in the 10-metre air pistol event with a final score of 203.8. Sidhu is right handed and is right eye dominant.
Malaika Goel is an Indian shooter. She won the silver medal in the Women's 10m Air Pistol competition at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland. She was the youngest medallist.
Ayonika Paul is an Indian shooter who competes in the 10 metre air rifle event. She won the silver medal in the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
Shweta Chaudhry, also known as Shweta Singh, is an Indian sport shooter who competes in the 10 metre air pistol and 25 metre sports pistol events.
Teo Shun Xie is a Singaporean sport shooter. In 2014, Teo set a final meet record in the women's air pistol to claim her first gold medal at the Commonwealth Games.
Manu Bhaker is an Indian sport shooter. She has won 2 medals at the Olympic Games, 7 medals at the Asian Games and Asian Championships, and 21 medals at the World Championships and World Cups. She gained wide recognition after her performance at the 2024 Olympics where she became the first Indian woman shooter to win an Olympics medal by winning a bronze in the 10m pistol event. She won another bronze in the 10m pistol mixed team event, thus becoming the first Indian to win two medals in a single Olympic Games.
Saurabh Chaudhary is an Indian sport shooter. He won the gold medal at the 2018 Asian Games in 10 m air pistol and became the youngest Indian gold medalist to do so. He has won gold medals and set a new world record at the Junior World Cup. He has won gold medals at the World Championships, World Cup, Youth Olympic Games, Asian Games and Asian Championships. He broke his own world record with a score of 245.5 and claimed gold in junior men's 10m air pistol at the 2018 World Championships.
Ji Xiaojing is a Chinese female sport shooter. She mainly competes in ISSF 10m air pistol event at international shooting competitions. She represented China at the 2018 Asian Games and claimed her first Asian Games medal, gold in the AP60 mixed team event along with Wu Jiayu.
Amit Sheoran is a pistol shooting coach, who also competed at a national level, He had to leave shooting due to the death of his father. He has produced several national and international-level Indian pistol shooters. He has coached Saurabh Chaudhary.
Yashaswini Singh Deswal is an Indian sport shooter. As of 2021, she is ranked world No. 1 in 10 meter air pistol.
Esha Singh is an Indian sport shooter. She became the youngest national champion in the 10 meter air pistol in 2018 at the age of 13. Besides 10 meter air pistol, she also competes in 25 meter standard pistol and 25 meter pistol events.
Shiva Narwal is an Indian sport shooter. He won the bronze medal in the ISSF world cup 10m Air Pistol mixed event along with Palak. He won the gold medal in Men's 10m air pistol team in the 2022 Asian Games.
Rhythm Sangwan is an Indian sport shooter who usually competes in 10 meter air pistol and 25 meter pistol. She has won medals in Shooting World Cups and Shooting Championship at junior as well as at senior level.
Divya Thadigol Subbaraju is an Indian sport shooter from Karnataka. She competes in the ISSF 10 meter air pistol discipline. She became the National Champion in 10m Air Pistol 2022. She was part of the Indian shooting team at the Asian Games, Hangzhou, China and won 2 Silver medals.
Sarabjot Singh is an Indian sport shooter who specializes in the 10 m air pistol. He is an Olympic bronze medalist having won the medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics alongside Manu Bhaker.
Arjun Singh Cheema is an Indian sport shooter from Punjab. He competes in the 10m air pistol discipline. He was part of the Indian shooting team that won the 10m air pistol team gold at the 2022 Asian Games, Hangzhou, China.
The women's 10 metre air pistol competition at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China was held on 29 September 2023 at the Fuyang Yinhu Sports Centre.Palak Gulia of India won the gold medal.
Varun Tomar is an Indian sport shooter. He bagged an Olympic quota berth for the 2024 Summer Olympics in the 10m Air Pistol event by winning a gold medal at the Asian Olympic Qualifiers on 8 January 2024 at Jakarta.
Raiza Dhillon is an Indian sport shooter. She secured an Olympic quota berth for the 2024 Summer Olympics in the women's skeet event by winning a gold medal at the Asian Shotgun Championships, an Asian Olympic qualifier event on 20 January 2024 at Kuwait City. She became the first Indian woman to potentially qualify for an Olympic skeet event. It also brought the Indian Olympic quota count to 19. The quota berth won by a shooter is a berth for the country and the Federation, which can nominate any shooter for Olympics, as per set criteria.
