Very few rifle shooters ever see a perfect 400 on the scoreboard. Suma Shirur did it in Kuala Lumpur in 2004, equalling the world record in the women’s 10m air rifle and booking her place at the Athens Olympics in the same stroke. Two decades later she is shaping the next generation of Indian rifle shooters, and her work as a coach has brought her a second national sports award.
Name: Suma Shirur (née Suma Betaraya Dixit) | Born: 10 May 1974, Chikkaballapur, Karnataka | Sport: Shooting | Event: 10m air rifle
From the NCC to the shooting range
Suma was born in Chikkaballapur in Karnataka but grew up in the Navi Mumbai area. She went to St. Xavier’s High School in Nerul and Fr. Agnel’s junior college in Vashi, then studied chemistry at the South Indian Education Society college. Her interest in shooting began during her graduation years, when she was a cadet in the National Cadet Corps.
She trained with the Maharashtra Rifle Association, where Sanjay Chakraverty and B. P. Bam guided her early development. Results followed quickly. In 1993 she won three silver medals at the Maharashtra State Championship, and a year later she was junior national champion at the Junior National Championships in Chennai. At the 1997 National Games in Bangalore she won the 10m air rifle gold for Karnataka.
Medals in Manchester and Busan
Her breakthrough on the international stage came in 2002. At the Commonwealth Games in Manchester she partnered Anjali Bhagwat to win gold in the women’s 10m air rifle pairs. In the individual event the two finished first and second, with Shirur taking silver behind her team-mate. Later that year she helped India to a team silver in the 10m air rifle at the Asian Games in Busan.
The Government of India gave her the Arjuna Award in 2002. That season set the pattern for the rest of her shooting career. She was a dependable scorer in team events and a genuine contender in individual finals.
A perfect 400 in Kuala Lumpur
The defining day came at the 2004 Asian Championships in Kuala Lumpur. In qualification she hit the maximum 400 out of 400, equalling the world record. She went on to win the individual gold with a final total of 502.3, and the result earned her a place at the Olympic Games.
She has since described the score as the reward for roughly ten years of steady work. It also arrived at the right time, months before the biggest competition of her life. In 2005 she was named Sportswoman of the Year at the Hero Honda Sports Awards.
Athens 2004 Olympic final
In Athens she shot 396 in qualification and placed seventh, which put her into the eight-woman final. She added 101.2 in the final for a total of 497.2 and finished eighth. Du Li of China took the gold with an Olympic record. Shirur’s appearance in that final stood as the last individual Olympic shooting final reached by an Indian woman until Manu Bhaker made the 10m air pistol final at Paris 2024.
A long run at the top
Shirur kept competing for more than a decade after Athens. She won bronze in the 10m air rifle at the 2005 Asian Championships in Bangkok, then team bronzes at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha and the 2007 Asian Championships in Kuwait City. In 2008 she won the Hungarian Open in Győr, took team gold at the Asian Airgun Championship in Nanjing and finished fourth at the ISSF World Cup in Rio de Janeiro.
At the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi she won bronze in the pairs with Kavita Yadav. She was also a regular at the InterShoot meet in The Hague, collecting several individual and team medals there between 2008 and 2015. Representing Indian Railways, she won the individual title at the National Shooting Championship in New Delhi in January 2011. One of her last international podiums was a silver at the 2016 Asian Air Gun Championship in Tehran.
Building shooters at Lakshya and beyond
In 2006, while still competing, Shirur founded the Lakshya Shooting Club in New Panvel to give young shooters a place to train. She retired from competition in 2018 and was appointed coach of the Indian junior rifle team the same year. She now works as the high performance coach of the junior rifle squad.
Her best-known pupil is Avani Lekhara, who won the women’s SH1 10m air rifle gold at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics and defended it at Paris 2024. On 30 November 2022 President Droupadi Murmu presented Shirur with the Dronacharya Award, two decades after her Arjuna Award. She was also named Coach of the Year (Female) at the Indian Sports Honours in 2024.
Career record and honours
- World record equalled: 400/400 in 10m air rifle qualification, Asian Championships, Kuala Lumpur, 2004
- Olympic Games: finalist, 8th, 10m air rifle, Athens 2004 (497.2)
- Commonwealth Games: gold, 10m air rifle pairs, and silver, 10m air rifle individual, Manchester 2002; bronze, 10m air rifle pairs, Delhi 2010
- Asian Games: silver, 10m air rifle team, Busan 2002; bronze, 10m air rifle team, Doha 2006
- Asian Championships: gold, 10m air rifle, Kuala Lumpur 2004; bronze, Bangkok 2005; team bronze, Kuwait City 2007
- Asian Airgun Championship: team gold, Nanjing 2008; silver, Tehran 2016
- ISSF World Cup: 4th, Rio de Janeiro 2008
- Shiv Chhatrapati Krida Puraskar, Government of Maharashtra, 1996
- Arjuna Award, 2002
- Sportswoman of the Year, Hero Honda Sports Awards, 2005
- Dronacharya Award, 2022
- Coach of the Year (Female), Indian Sports Honours, 2024
- Founder, Lakshya Shooting Club, New Panvel (2006); junior national rifle coach since 2018
