India’s ‘special’ Srikanth claims another gold, eyes Paris Games

Published: 13 Nov 2019 - 12:44 am | Last Updated: 05 Nov 2021 - 03:52 am

Dhanush Srikanth (centre) celebrates his gold medal with other medal winning shooters yesterday.

By Armstrong Vas I The Peninsula

India’s junior rifle shooter Dhanush Srikanth is breaking all barriers and proving to be one of his kind. After winning two golds at the 14th Asian Shooting Championships, the hearing-impaired talent is setting sights on the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The 16- year-old picked up gold medals in the junior section, in the mixed team (on Monday) and in the individual contest yesterday, to send a strong message that he is ‘someone special’ and that a hearing impairment cannot be barrier in attaining success in shooting.

“He is a special case and he is talented, it is quite a task to coach and guide him,” said Deepak Kumar Dubey, India Junior rifle team coach while talking to The Peninsula.

Srikanth, was born with a hearing loss, took up shooting when he was 14, after trying his hand at taekwondo and cricket in the southern Indian state of Telangana.

Srikanth hears very little, despite the cochlear implants and the hearing aid he wears. Often, a coach sits right behind him in the gallery and conveys through sign language the instructions of the range officers.

“We have built a special bond for the last one year and we know each other and I am getting use to communicating him in the sign language.

The connection between us is growing as we spend more time together in the training camps and at events,” added Dubey, who has been India’s junior team coach for the last nine years.

The experienced coach had quite a task at hands before and during the ongoing championships at the Losail shooting Range.

He had to take some ‘basic lessons’ of sign language before the championships began to give the golden touch to junior shooter. Srikanth is one of a kind, he is different from other shooters and Dubey along with other India coaches and officials besides the jury has had to communicate with him in the sign language during the championships and during the camps before heading to Qatar.

“I want to represent India at the 2024 Olympics. That is my goal. Abhinav Bindra (gold medal winner at the 2008 Beijing Olympics) is my role model,” Srikant told The Peninsula, while writing his idols name on a piece of paper.

“He is good and a quick learner and the future look bright. The current Asian Championships is the first time he is representing India and he won gold medals in the individual and mixed team events. If he remains focused his chances of making it to Olympics are very high,”said coach Dubey.

Elaborating his association with Srikant, Dubey said: “We had to learn sign language to pass on the coaching tips and the breathing exercises he has to during an event and during coaching. It was for the first time I am doing it and it for the first time we has a shooter with whom we could communicate only through sign language,” added the coach. Dubey in spite of the inherent language barriers is quite a ‘social guy’ says another junior shooter Patil, who also picked up two gold medals at the championships.

“He (Srikant) is a social guy, he likes to communicate in sign language and makes sure that the message is clear and if the other person has not understood he makes sure to write it down to make things clear,” said Patil, who got to know the shooter from the Indian junior shooting camp in Delhi.

Patil, who will turn 16 next month and is into his final year of school and hails from Mumbai, won gold in the 10m pistol team event and followed it up by winning the individual contest in the youth category.

Asian Shooting Championships results

Skeet Mixed Team: 1. China (Wei Meng, Jin Di) 36 (145); 2. India

(Ganemat Sekhon, Angad Vir Singh Bajwa) 33 (146); 3. Japan (Naoko

Ishihara, Hiroyuki Ikawa) 35 (144)

Men:

50m Pistol: 1. Park Daehun (Kor) 567; 2. Gaurav Rana (Ind) 562; 3.

Arjun Singh Cheema (Ind) 560

Team: 1. Korea 1672; 2. China 1659; 3. India 1653.

Junior men:

10m Air Rifle: 1. Dhanush Srikanth (Ind) 248.2; 2. Jiang Xuanie (Chn)

245.7; 3. Shahu Tushar Mane (Ind) 226.4

Team: 1. India 1877.1; 2. China 1876.4; 3. Korea 1860.2.