Profile: Shagun Chowdhary
Shagun Chowdhary became the first Indian woman to qualify for the Olympic trap shooting event. Finishing fourth at World Championships Shagun Chowdhary achieved the feat.
Sport: Shooting
Born: 26 June 1983
Event: Women's trap
About Shagun Chowdhury:
Shagun Chowdhary became the first Indian woman to qualify for the Olympic trap shooting event when she finished fourth at the Belgrade World Championships.
Shooting began at an early age for the Rajasthan born lady but competitive shooting started in 2001. It was 2003 when she won her first International medal though, winning a bronze in the Double Trap event.
In 2005 she was forced to switch to trap after double trap as an event was discontinued in the Olympics. Things started falling in place despite trap not being her pet event. She became the National Champion in trap.
Currently training under Italian coach Marcello Dradi, she has performed consistently at the National level. The 2011 National Games saw her get a Gold while she managed a Silver at the National Championships in the same year. Shagun also won a bronze in the team event at the ISSF World Cup in Chile, 2011.
She got acquainted with pigeon shooting when she was all of two. Her father Sushil Chowdhary, used to shoot skeet along with Bikaner's Maharaja Karni Singhji. It was a toy gun she used back then. Later she also became a state level swimming champion.
In an event which tests a shooters nerves to the hilt, the margin for error is pretty low but Shagun's hardwork and perseverance is paying off at the right time. When Olympic Gold Quest, a not-for-profit organisation set up by Prakash Padukone and Geet Sethi, started sponsoring athletes like Shagun, half their troubles vanished then and there.
Previous Olympics: None