Name: Vijay Kumar
Born: 19 August 1985, Harsour, Hamirpur district
State: Himachal Pradesh
Sport: Shooting (25m rapid fire pistol)
Early life and joining the army
Vijay Kumar was born on 19 August 1985 in Harsour village in Hamirpur district, Himachal Pradesh, to Banku Ram, a retired Indian Army subedar, and Roshni Devi. He enlisted in the army as a sepoy in 2001, and it was only after joining up that his interest in shooting turned into something serious. His rise through the ranks mirrored his rise as a marksman: promoted directly from sepoy to havildar in 2006, then naib subedar the same year, subedar in 2009, and subedar major in August 2012, immediately after his Olympic medal. He served with the Dogra Regiment’s 16th Battalion and was posted to the Army Marksmanship Unit at Mhow from 2003, where he was coached by the Russian Pavel Smirnov and had access to the kind of specialist training and equipment that few Indian shooters outside the services could count on at the time.
Building a reputation at the Commonwealth Games
Kumar first announced himself on the big stage at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games, winning gold in the individual 25m rapid fire pistol and again in the pairs event with Pemba Tamang. He went even better at the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games on home soil, winning three golds, in the rapid fire pistol singles, the rapid fire pistol pairs with Gurpreet Singh, where the pair set a Commonwealth record of 1162 points, and the centre fire pistol pairs with Harpreet Singh, along with a silver in the centre fire pistol singles.
Silver at the London Olympics
Kumar went into the 2012 London Games well short of the attention given to shooting colleagues such as Abhinav Bindra, Gagan Narang and Ronjan Sodhi, but it was Kumar who delivered when it mattered. In the 25m rapid fire pistol final he shot a strong opening round to move ahead of the field, at one stage leading after the fourth round, before finishing with the silver medal and an average score of 9.767, having posted 293 with seven inner tens in the first stage. Along the way he got the better of the reigning world record holder Alexei Klimov and Beijing medallist Ding Feng. It made him the fourth Indian to win an individual Olympic medal, after Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Abhinav Bindra and Gagan Narang, and remains the only Olympic medal won by an Indian in the 25m rapid fire pistol event.
World Cup and Asian medals
Kumar won World Cup silver medals in Beijing in 2009, going down to Keith Sanderson by just 0.1 of a point, and in Fort Benning in 2011, both in the rapid fire pistol event. At the Asian Games he added a bronze in Doha in 2006, a bronze in Guangzhou in 2010, and a silver in Incheon in 2014, and he won gold at the 2012 Asian Championships in the 25m standard pistol.
Recognition and later career
Kumar received the Arjuna Award in 2007 and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna after his Olympic medal, along with the Padma Shri in 2013 and the Sena Medal for his military service. State governments in Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan gave him substantial cash awards, and he was promoted to subedar major by the army. He retired from the army in 2017 after sixteen years of service, later completed a degree in business administration, and moved into a role with the Himachal Pradesh police as a deputy superintendent, taking his marksmanship from the battlefield and the range into a new line of public service.
Achievements and awards
Silver medal, 25m rapid fire pistol, London Olympics 2012; three gold and one silver, Commonwealth Games 2010; two gold, Commonwealth Games 2006; gold, Asian Championships 2012; two World Cup silvers, 2009 and 2011; Arjuna Award, 2007; Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, 2012; Padma Shri, 2013; Sena Medal.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
