Heena Sidhu's hectic schedule can take a toll on her, says husband

Heena Sidhu, however, didn't have it easy and had to shore up all her experience in the end to achieve a Bronze at the Asian Games 2018

India’s star pistol shooter Heena Sidhu clinched the bronze medal with a total of 219.2 points in the 10m air pistol event here.

Sidhu, however, didn’t have it easy and had to shore up all her experience in the end to achieve a third place finish. Sidhu, 28, began poorly, with a score of just 96.7 in the first stage, placing her seventh. However, staring down the barrel, and facing elimination, she shot a couple of 10-plus scores to slowly but steadily climb up the ranks.

Her husband and National Rifle Association of India’s (NRAI) Observer of rifle and pistol events, Ronak Pandit told mid-day that the former World No. 1 is undergoing a very testing phase professionally. “For the last one year, Sidhu and myself have not been home [in Mumbai] for even 10 days. That’s how busy we have been travelling for training and competitions. Imagine waking up in the morning and not knowing which country in the world you are in. This can take a mental toll on a shooter and it could reach a stage where the love for the sport goes down. You find it tough to bring up that killer instinct every time and in professional shooting, where there is no margin for error, it can be most tedious,” said Pandit.

“All she wants at times is being able to get up in the morning and read a newspaper and have her coffee, but she can’t because she has her training day-in and day-out and a strict diet to maintain,” he added.

The Asian Games too is not the end of Sidhu’s travelling woes. “We head to Changwon, Korea from here straightaway for the ISSF World Championships [August 31 to September 14]. That’s a major event and only after that can she and me think of a taking a much-needed break,” he said.
Meanwhile, Heena, was unhappy to have lost out on the top spot here. “I strongly believed that I could have won the gold medal here but I fell back a bit in qualification. But now I’m look forward to doing well in Korea,” she said.

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