Vijay shoots Indias second WC silver

Shooter Vijay Kumar Sharma hasn't forgotten meeting then national champion Jaspal Rana back in 1997. A high school student with only Rs 50 in his pocket....

Shooter Vijay Kumar Sharma hasn’t forgotten meeting then national champion Jaspal Rana back in 1997. A high school student with only Rs 50 in his pocket,he had come from his village Harsaur to Shimla to meet Rana. More than a decade later,Sharma won India its second silver medal in as many days at the Beijing ISSF World Cup on Wednesday.

“That incident changed my life. I come from a small village in Himachal where no one knew about shooting. I had watched the game on television and was keen on meeting Rana. I made an overnight journey to Shimla,spending the night at the bus stand because I had no money,” Sharma recalled while talking to The Indian Express from Beijing.

Sharma lost to USAs Keith Sanderson in the 25M rapid fire pistol event final on Wednesday by 0.1 point after finishing fourth in the qualifying round.

“Once I qualified for the final,I aimed for the best. 199.4 is a good score but I lost by a whisker. Sanderson kept his cool and it was a very close finish in the end. But I will draw many positives from the performance,” said Sharma.

Late starter

Sharma joined the army in 2001 and started shooting in 2003. “The financial situation at home meant I could only watch shooting on television. Once I passed my board exams,I was selected for the Army Marksman Unit at the Military Headquarters of War. My first coach Iger Rankov,a Russian expert hired by the army,advised me to try the pistol,” said Sharma,who first shot into fame when he surpassed the long-standing junior world mark in pistol with his score of 588 at the nationals trials in 2005.

Sharma was then selected for the Indian team for the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games and he won gold in the 25M rapid fire pistol and the 25M rapid fire pistol (pairs). he followed that with a bronze in the same event and a gold in centre fire pistol (team) at the Doha Asian Games,before missing the World Cups due to injury.

“The Commonwealth Games were huge but I suffered a minor injury straight after,which meant I could not perform well in the individual event in Doha and missed the World Cups that year,” he said.

Nitin Sharma

Nitin Sharma is an Assistant Editor with the sports team of The Indian Express. Based out of Chandigarh, Nitin works with the print sports desk while also breaking news stories for the online sports team. A Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award recipient for the year 2017 for his story ‘Harmans of Moga’, Nitin has also been a three-time recipient of the UNFPA-supported Laadli Media Awards for Gender Sensitivity for the years 2022, 2023 and this year respectively. His latest Laadli Award, in November 2025, came for an article on Deepthi Jeevanji, who won India’s first gold medal at the World Athletics Para Championship and was taunted for her unusual features as a child. Nitin mainly covers Olympics sports disciplines with his main interests in shooting, boxing, wrestling, athletics and much more. The last 17 years with The Indian Express has seen him unearthing stories across India from as far as Andaman and Nicobar to the North East. Nitin also covers cricket apart from women’s cricket with a keen interest. Nitin has covered events like the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the 2011 ODI World Cup, 2016 T20 World Cup and the 2017 AIBA World Youth Boxing Championships. An alumnus of School of Communication Studies, Panjab University, from where he completed his Masters in Mass Communications degree, Nitin has been an avid quizzer too. A Guru Nanak Dev University Colour holder, Nitin’s interest in quizzing began in the town of Talwara Township, a small town near the Punjab-Himachal Pradesh border. When not reporting, Nitin's interests lie in discovering new treks in the mountains or spending time near the river Beas at his hometown. ... Read More