New Delhi: Life hasn’t been the same for Shagun Chowdhary ever since she became the first Indian woman to qualify for the 2012 London Olympics in trap shooting after finishing 4th in the World Championships in Belgrade.“My life has just become more intense than it ever has been. And now that Olympic Gold Quest is supporting me, things have just become better,” she says. “It’s finally sunk in as I keep hearing it over and over again.”

From a disappointing 27th in the Shotgun World Cup in Beijing to booking a quota for the London Games with a fourth-place finish at the World Championship in Belgrade, it has been an action-packed year for Shagun.The 28-year-old feels that she could have made the Olympic mark much earlier but had to be kept waiting due to lack of proper training.

“When one makes it to the Olympics, he has to have a certain amount of caliber. I will never say I can’t win an Olympic gold; else I would not have qualified in the first place. I will go to the Olympics with all the hope in the world and also all the training under my belt.”Talking about the women’s team the shooter says, “Everyone used to think of us as just participants to make up the numbers, but there has been a lot of hard work put in by the women’s team, and now we are getting recognition too. We’ve had more consistent, well-planned training and (national trap coach) Marcello Dradi should get the credit for it.

Her father, Sushil Chowdhary was a skeet shooter who used to shoot with five times Olympian Maharaja Karni Singh. She has always been a consistent performer at the national level and won the silver medal in the 2008 Asian Clay Shooting Championships. One of the top rifle shooters of the country, Shagun Chaudhary is a name to reckon with in Jaipur.

By Indian Sports News