Born on October 30, 1990, Rahi Sarnobat was brought up in Kohlapur City in Maharashtra. She was passionate about shooting and dreamt of representing India one day since her school days. And she translated that into reality, becoming one of the finest award-wining Indian shooters.
Odds were rather stacked against her early on in terms of training infrastructure in her native place which was inadequate. But Rahi was highly motivated. She got off on the right foot by drawing inspiration from 50m rifle pro World Champion Tejaswini Sawant who also hails from Kohlapur.
She eventually moved to Mumbai for better training and is currently honing her skills under the supervision of coach Munkhbayar Dorjsuren at Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex, Pune.
At the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games held in Pune, she laid her hands on her first gold medal. And in the 2011 World Cup, Rahi claimed a bronze medal which got her a berth in the 2012 Olympics. She took the world by storm when she became India’s first pistol shooter to clinch a gold medal in the 2013 edition of the ISSF World Cup.
Age: 30 years
Sports/Disciple: Shooting
World Ranking: 2
First Olympic Games: London 2012
Awards
Rahi Sarnobat was conferred Arjuna Award by the National Rifle Association of India in 2015.
Major Achievements:
World Championships
• Gold – Women’s Team, 2011 Fort Benning
• Bronze – Women’s Team, 2013 Changwon
• Gold – Women’s Team, 2019 Munich
• God – Women’s Team, 2021 Osijek
Commonwealth Games
• Gold – 2010 Delhi (25m pistol pairs)
• Silver – 2010 Delhi (25m pistol)
• Gold – 2014 Glasgow (25m pistol)
Asian Games
• Bronze – Women’s Team, 2014 Incheon
• Gold – Women’s Team, 2018 Jakarta
Recent Performances
Rahi has the distinction of being the first Indian woman to bag a gold medal in 25m pistol shooting event in 2018 Asian games. The Olympic-bound won gold in the Women’s 25m Pistol at the 2021 ISSF World Cup in Osijek in Croatia.
Tokyo Olympics Qualification
After her gold haul in the 2019 World Cup, held in Munich, Germany, she got selected for the 2020 Summer Olympics, which got postponed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and has been rescheduled to be held from July 23-August 8, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan.
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