Key chain to ward off evil, coach Deepali's hard work behind Swapnil's Olympic glory

NEW DELHI: Shooter Swapnil Kusale doesn't consider himself particularly superstitious. However, when his fellow teammates Akhil Sheoran and Shriyanka Sadangi presented him with a small key chain to protect against the evil eye, he graciously accepted it before departing for the Olympics in Paris.
In several high-profile competitions, including the 2023 Asian Games and the 2022 World Championships in Cairo, Swapnil found himself narrowly missing out on success.In Cairo, a single shot and a few decimal points relegated him to fourth place.
However, in Paris, the 29-year-old made history by becoming the first Indian to secure a bronze medal in the 50m rifle 3-positions event at the Olympics, setting the record straight.
Despite Akhil and Shriyanka, both 50m rifle 3-positions shooters, having earned Olympic quota spots for the country, they were unable to qualify for the Games after the National Rifle Association of India conducted the Olympic Selection Trials.
"Just before I was to travel to Paris, My best friends Akhil and Shriyanka came to meet me and gifted a key chain to guard me against the evil eye. They said, 'bhai jeet ke aana hai' (return a winner)."
Swapnil credits his Olympic success to the guidance of his personal coach, Deepali Deshpande, and the support of his 'elder sister,' Tejaswini Sawant. Their influence and teachings played a significant role in his achievements.
"The three of us -- me, Akhil and Shriyanka -- have been together for years and they take care of me whenever I am in Delhi. We share a very strong bond. Akhil is like my brother and Shriyanka my sister. We are a family whenever we are in camp or competition... so many years we have spent together since our junior days," Swapnil told PTI on Saturday.
Swapnil, who comes from Kolhapur in Maharashtra, attributes his success in his debut Olympics to the hard work and dedication of former international rifle shooter Deepali.
"Deepali ma'am is like my second mother. She has seen me shoot since 2012. She knows what I require, when I tend to get emotional or what makes me feel sad... what makes me happy. So, that mother-son relationship goes back to my early days of shooting. She has intricately gone into every aspect of my shooting," says Swapnil, who missed a medal at the Hangzhou Asian Games last year only because of just one rank bad shot.
When in Pune, he prefers training with Tejaswini, a shooting stalwart and former world champion in the 50m rifle prone.
"Teju di (Tejaswini) is like my elder sister. She is an Olympian and a very experienced shooter. Both of us belong to Kolhapur, so we train together in Pune. If I commit an error in shooting she corrects it immediately," says the TTE with Indian railways.
'Journey has just started'
Swapnil views the bronze medal as just a stepping stone toward his ultimate goal of winning an Olympic gold.
"My dream is not yet complete. It is to win a gold medal at the Olympics. That is my goal. The medal that I won in Paris is normal for me, and one stage near to my dream, if I can put it that way," he says.
'Asian Games fourth place left me traumatised'
Swapnil mentioned that a single poor shot of 7.6, which cost him a medal at the Hangzhou Asian Games, had unsettled him. However, the intervention of his mental trainer helped him get back on track.
"During the Asian Games when I finished fourth, I was in trauma. But my psychologist handled it very well and prepared me on how to ignore the Hangzhou debacle.
"He asked me not to think about that poor score and just focus on the shots that were really good, visualise them, how did you do that. So, once I started doing that, I started getting better scores in the finals. He told me, 'If there is a poor shot just erase it from your memory and concentrate on the remaining shots'."
The MS Dhoni factor
As a TTE with the Railways, Swapnil finds a stronger connection with cricket legend Mahendra Singh Dhoni rather than with shooting icons like Abhinav Bindra and Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore.
"It's not like have not learnt a lot from big shooters like Abhinav Bindra, Gagan Narang and RVS Rathore.
"I relate to Dhoni more because he was a ticket collector in the Railways and I am also a TC. We all have seen the movie (M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story), where he wanted to realise his dream of becoming a cricketer and followed his instincts. I have a similar mindset.
"Another thing which really stands out in Dhoni is his calm temperament. He never gets flustered whatever be the situation. These are the same things we require in shooting. One bad shot and we get rattled. So, we don't have to do that but remain calm. That is the most important thing. Those are the things I learnt from Dhoni," he added.