Meet Saurabh Chaudhary, the Abhimanyu who survived

Saurabh Chaudhary, 16 year old kid, became the 5th ever Gold Medalist in Shooting in Asian Games. The event was 10 m Air Pistol and had one of the most competitive field. On his day, he defeated Tomoyuki Matsuda, the Japanese legend who was the 2017 Male Shooter of the year. 

The arena was one of the most decorative one with Jin Jongoh, 38, is a Korean four-time Olympic gold medallist who holds the world record in air pistol. Wu Jiayu and Wang Mengyi are China’s wonderkids in pistol who have starred in recent World Cups. Korean Lee Daemyung is the 2010 Asiad champion. Kazakh Vladimir Isschenko is a continental medallist. But none could beat Indian wonderkid who was participating in his first senior tournament. He was also the youngest of all. 

The boy is from Kalina village in Uttar Pradesh. His father is a farmer and he a 11th class student. He learnt and honed shooting at Amit Sheoran’s academy at Benoli near Baghpat, 53 kilometers from Meerut. Whenever he is home, he helps his father in the farming business.

“I like farming. We don’t get much time off from training but whenever I do, I go back to my Village (Kalina) and help my father,” said Chaudhary. 

In the sports fraternity, his win was well applauded. Tweets from Sehwag, Rathod, Abhinav Bindra, etc. were some of the most notable ones.