Jab Tokyo se wapis aya tha, hum sabke liye badi baat thi. Jeetna harna toh chalta rehta hai par hamare gaon se Olympics khelna bahut badi baat hai (When he returned from the Olympics, it was a wonderful experience for the entire family. Winning and losing are part of the game, but competing in the Olympics is a big deal for our community). We also celebrated the achievement at the wedding.
Today’s medal will give him a lot of confidence to qualify for the Paris Olympics and realize his dream of winning a medal, said Tomar’s father, Veer Bahadur Singh Tomar.
The youngster, whose father owns more than 35 acres of land in Rattanpur, would first shoot with air guns at the Navgrah fair in Khargone, in addition to listening to his father’s shikar (hunting) stories. On the insistence of cousin Navdeep Singh Rathore, Tomar would soon relocate to Bhopal to train at the Madhya Pradesh Shooting Academy.
Within three years, he would win junior world championship medals and qualify for the Tokyo Olympics with a bronze medal at the 2019 Asian Championships in Doha. Despite a strong start in the kneeling and prone series, the youngster finished 21st in Tokyo. Aishwary used to tell us that people would talk about him as if he had done something wrong.
But he, like the rest of the family, did not regard Tokyo as a failure. Following that, he focused on losing weight and seeking treatment for his back pain. We also changed his rifle and jacket and got him pilates training to help him regain core strength, Rathore recalls.
Tomar shot a junior world record qualification score of 1185 after Tokyo before winning the world junior title in Peru with a final record score of 463.4. Last year, he also won gold at the Changwon World Cup.
I only recall Tokyo as a learning experience for me. It provided me with the opportunity to reflect on my mistakes as well as the motivation to improve. The weight loss and treatment for the back pain put me back on track, says Tomar.
Tomar previously trained with both Suma Shirur and the Indian team’s foreign coach, Thomas Farnik. Due to illness, the Austrian modified Tomar’s technique and watched Wednesday’s final from the team hotel in Cairo.
Unlike many Indian shooters, Aishwary was open to new experiences. Coach Shirur was also on the same wavelength, so we tweaked his shooting routine and method with some technical and positional changes. We also helped him realize that under the new format, one cannot afford to fall too far behind in a particular series, Farnik says.
Tomar defeated 33-year-old Tokyo Olympian Schmirl 16-6 in the gold medal match, according to the format in which shooters fire a single shot each and win two points for a set. Ek bar 10-6 ki lead bana li toh lag gaya tha ki gold medal pakka hai, says the coach. (Once I had a 10-6 lead, I knew the gold medal was mine), said Tomar.
