Asian Games: Elavenil Valarivan stopped chasing the medal. Then she won two

Elavenil Valarivan led the women’s 10m air rifle final on Sunday for most of the way. After 20 shots, she was on 211.1, 0.3 clear of Japan’s Hinata Taichi. Two shots later, she was 0.3 behind. Hinata took the 23rd shot 10.6 to 10.4 and the last 10.2 to 10.1, finishing on 253.0, an Asian Games record. Elavenil’s 252.4 was silver by 0.6, with reigning Olympic champion Ban Hyo-jin a distant third on 230.4.

It was close enough to hurt, and Elavenil did not dress it up as anything else. What she declined to do was blame the pressure.

Asked whether it had played a part, she said: “I would say no, not really. I mean, if pressure had to play a role, then it should have been from the match, from, from the beginning of the finals. Not really. It was, for me, it was more about following my technique and following my process for every single shot,” she said.

She had an even blunter assessment of what those final three shots had taught her.

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“There could be a lot of things that I could have done differently, but again, learning is the part that I’m looking more into right now,” she told reporters on Sunday.

“Of course, there could have been, I could have taken better calls, but, which I didn’t, and, hence the learning, is what I’m taking from the last three shots. I could have been a little more patient in taking my shots and, possibly worked a little more on my breathing.”

The composure has eight years behind it. Elavenil was a teenage world-record holder when she first went to the Asian Games, and she had been world No. 1 and a two-time Olympian without a Games medal to show for it. Sunday gave her two at the Asian Games. Earlier in the day she had won team silver with Sonam Uttam Maskar and Vidarsa K Vinod, India’s first medal of these Games. India finished 0.9 ahead of the hosts on 1898.0, behind a Chinese world record. Hours later she was back on the line, 0.6 short of individual gold.

“I think today definitely is a very, very, very joyous day for me because this was my first Games medal,” she said.

“Although I’ve played in 3 Games prior to this 2 Olympics and 1 Asian, I think this is my first medal, of course, I’m going to cherish it to the core.”

EXPECTATION

The expectations came early. In March 2018, at 18, Elavenil won gold at the Junior ISSF World Cup in Sydney, and her 631.4 in qualification was a junior world record. It was only her second World Cup and her first final. She got her own rifle in 2016 and made the junior team a year later, training at Gagan Narang’s academy under coach Neha Chavan.

The record made her a prodigy, which is a hard thing to be in a sport that gives no credit for potential. A qualification score does not carry into a final, and a ranking does not carry into the next Games. In the Jakarta Asian Games later that year she finished 14th and missed the final. For Hangzhou, the next edition, she did not make the team. Tokyo saw her arrive as world No. 1 and leave 16th in qualification, and Paris, where she made the team alongside Ramita Jindal, ended before the final too.

Success was never the problem. She won the Asian Championships in Shymkent last year with an Asian record 253.6 and defended the title this year. The Games were the gap in the CV.

ENJOY THE SPORT

The clearest change is in how she talks about winning. Earlier in her career the result was the destination: make the team, win the competition, get the medal.

“I think, lately I’ve started to enjoy the sport. Initially it was more about me making it to the team, winning the competition, it was about winning it, but now it is more about enjoying it, enjoying just being the part, getting to be a part of the team, and, you know, representing the country. So I think that has been one of the major shift in my approach towards a competition or towards a training day.”

She drew the line between Paris and now herself.

“I think as I just mentioned, Paris, it was more about, me getting, being the best of myself, winning the day, and, you know, competing, but now it is more about just being happy that I get to play the sport, enjoying every single moment that I get, on lane, competing with my co, shooters.”

She still wanted the gold and did not pretend otherwise. She simply no longer let the misses cancel out everything before it.

FINALS ARE DIFFERENT

She is specific about why a final is a different sport from qualification.

“We go on a different mindset when we go for the qualification because we know that we have got 60 shots and we have got 1 hour, 15 minutes in our hand, and we can take our own time and go on. But, when it comes to the final, it is more of, you know, being on your toes and, you know, giving your best in those 50 seconds,” she said.

She has been working on the difference with her coach and her psychologist, and Chavan has helped her experiment with the pace of finals.

“Generally, I’m a very fast athlete on lane during my qualifications, but finals works on a completely different strategy because the time is less and you have to be your absolute best in that given time,” Elavenil said.

Sunday supplied fresh evidence, and her verdict on her triggering came in two halves.

“I think something that really worked out today was on, on the technical part. Would be my triggering. I mean, I had good triggering throughout my qualification, my finals. I was able to take the shots when I wanted to,” she said.

“Something that I would have to work on would also be my triggering, because there were times when I felt that possibly I could have delayed a bit and then taken the shot. So my judgement towards my triggering could have been a little bit better.”

The scoreboard says silver. She sees another training session.

SELF-DOUBT

There were bad days on the way here, and she does not pretend otherwise.

“Oh, of course, there is, there are times when, as an athlete, I, I mean, I have felt a lot of self-doubt because when we are working towards something and when we do not see the results, there’s, of course, going to be some level of self-doubt, some level of confusion, some level of frustration,” she said.

What got her through, she says, was the people around her.

“My coach, my psychologist, my strength and conditioning trainer, my nutritionist, my physio. They were all together working tirelessly for me, and I think that. Their support throughout is what kept me going on my hard days.”

One of them goes back to the start. Narang, whose academy she joined as a teenager, video called her before Sunday’s final.

“Of course, I video called, I mean Gagan video called me. I was just going for my dope and I took a few minutes off and I was talking to Sir. He did have some really good insights,” she said.

“He did, tell me about me following his footsteps, which again, I’m very grateful to learn from him.”

EIGHT YEARS ON

The medal does not erase the disappointments, and the disappointments do not erase the medal. Elavenil has now been to two Asian Games: the first, in Jakarta, ended without a final, and the second has brought two silvers.

“Looking back, yes, 2018 was my first Asian Games. This, 2026 is my second. I have evolved as a person. I’ve learned so much,” she said.

She counted the two Olympics, the World Cups, the World Championships and the Asian Championships that have filled the years in between.

“And, I think there’s a long way for me to go. I am still learning, still, there’s a lot of learning that’s coming up, and, I am just glad that I’m getting this opportunity to learn every single day.”

The 18-year-old, who broke the junior world record, was already very good at shooting. The 27-year-old who won two medals on Sunday, has got better at everything around it. She has learnt that a final is not a qualification, that patience can matter as much as the trigger, and that a good support system carries you through the doubt. Most of all, she has learnt that enjoying the sport is not the opposite of wanting to win. It makes it easier to keep going when the winning does not happen.

“I think my message would be to believe in themselves,” she said when asked what she would tell young shooters.
“I kind of have been doing this, that is to believe in myself because when one starts to believe in themselves, I think there’s no stopping.”

The 10.1, with gold still in reach, will stay with her mostly as homework.

“Today’s learning is something that I would, I would be taking today from here, but, tomorrow, again, it’s a new day, it’s a new challenge for me.”

– Ends