Rana became the face of Indian shooting after his sensational showing at the 1994 Victoria Commonwealth Games and Hiroshima Asian Games. Not many Indian shooters enjoyed fandom the way Jaspal Rana did. That’s the kind of impact the pistol shooter had after breaking on to the international stage as a talented teenager in the mid-1990s.
An Indian shooter caring little for the stage and reputation as he shot down medal after medal was rare and Jaspal soon became the star India was looking for. His teenage face flashed all across the media and he was received at the airport with a lot of fanfare. Having had a breakout CWG in Canada—he won four medals, including gold in centre fire pistol, an event that would define his shooting career—Rana won the 25m centre fire pistol gold in the 1994 Hiroshima Asian Games two months later, and combined with serial CWG champion Ashok Pandit and Surinder Marwah to win team bronze. He had already given notice of his talent at the world junior championships in Milan, 1994, becoming a world junior champion with a record score in 25m standard pistol, and shot fearlessly in the two multi-disciplinary events.
It turned out to be his most successful Asian Games, winning four medals, three of which were gold medals. There was plenty of drama at Qatar’s Lusail shooting range. India had returned without a gold day after day, until Rana step up. The victory, and proving himself, saw an emotional outpouring as he wept on the shoulder of then national coach, the late Prof Sunny Thomas, who was a mentor to him for years in the national team set-up.
“He became the face of Indian shooting when he was quite young,” said former international rifle shooter Deepali Deshpande. “People would recognise him on the streets and they would come to watch him shoot at the Karni Singh Range,” added Deepali, who was his senior by a few years and in the same team in several of India’s successful campaigns.
