Gagan Narang. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Name: Gagan Narang
Born: 6 May 1983, Madras (Chennai)
State: Andhra Pradesh
Sport: Shooting
Early life
Gagan Narang was born on 6 May 1983 in Madras, now Chennai, to Bhimsen Narang, a manager with Air India, and Amarjit Narang. His father’s postings took the family to Hyderabad, where Gagan grew up, attending Gitanjali Senior School before taking a Bachelor of Computer Application degree at Osmania University. His father gave him an air pistol in 1997, and he spent long hours practising in the backyard of the family home in Begumpet, moving on to air rifle shooting soon afterwards. According to his father, Gagan had shown an early interest in aim even as a toddler, once shooting a balloon with a toy pistol at the age of two, though it was the disciplined practice of his teenage years, hour after hour on the range, that turned that early knack into a genuine competitive skill.
Rise through the ranks
Narang won gold in the 10m air rifle at the 2003 Afro-Asian Games in Hyderabad, an early sign of what was to come, and followed it with air rifle gold at the 2006 World Cup. At the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games he won four gold medals, in the 10m air rifle singles and pairs and the 50m rifle three positions singles and pairs, and he repeated that haul of four golds at the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, shooting a perfect 600 in the 10m air rifle singles final for a new Games record. In November 2008 he set a world record score of 703.5 in the 10m air rifle at the World Cup Final in Bangkok, breaking the previous mark held by Austria’s Thomas Farnik. At the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games he won silver in the individual 10m air rifle and a second silver in the team event alongside Abhinav Bindra and Sanjeev Rajput.
London, 2012
Narang had competed at the Athens and Beijing Olympics without reaching the podium, finishing 12th and 9th respectively in the 10m air rifle. At the 2012 London Olympics, his third Games, he won bronze in the event with a score of 701.1, behind the Romanian gold medallist Alin George Moldoveanu and Italy’s silver medallist Niccolo Campriani, and just half a point off the silver. It was India’s first medal of the London Games and only the third Olympic medal won by an Indian shooter. He went on to compete at the 2016 Rio Olympics without reaching a final, and won a silver and a bronze in the 50m rifle events at the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
Later career
Narang has continued to be involved in Indian shooting administration and mentoring since his own competitive peak, and was named to the Padma Award Committee in 2023, a role that put him on the other side of a selection process he had once had to wait years to be recognised by. His London bronze brought a wave of state and corporate rewards, including cash prizes from the governments of Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan and two kilograms of gold from Sahara India Pariwar, and he was invited to wave the chequered flag to start the 2012 Indian Grand Prix. He had waited a long time for that Olympic medal: London was his third Games, and he later said the standard of competition at an Olympics was on a different level to any other meet, which was part of why the bronze meant as much to him as it did.
Achievements and awards
Olympic bronze, 10m air rifle (2012); eight Commonwealth Games gold medals (2006, 2010); world record score of 703.5 in the 10m air rifle (2008); two Asian Games silvers (2010); Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna (2010); Padma Shri (2011).
