'I hope India will have more women participating in shooting'

Shagun Chowdhary, the first Indian woman to qualify for the trap shooting event at the Olympics, tells Harish Kotian she wants to motivate more India women to take up the sport.

Having been introduced to shooting at an early age of two, it was no surprise that Shagun Chowdhary was destined for bigger things in the sport.

The 28-year-old created history when she became the first Indian woman to qualify for the trap shooting event at the Olympics Games. And she is hoping her feat will motivate more Indian women to take up the sport.

"Thankfully, the jinx has been broken. I hope India will have more women participating in shotgun shooting and it will become popular after this," the 28-year-old said in London.

Shagun, who will make her Olympics debut, qualified through the quota system when she finished fourth in the trap event at the ISSF World Championships in Belgrade last year.

The ace shooter explains why she chose trap over skeet shooting as she got into shooting because of her father Sushil, who incidentally was a skeet shooter.

"I assumed that competing in skeet would be harder than trap, because in skeet you have to keep the gun below the elbow level until the target comes in front of you and only then you can aim and shoot. So I took up trap," she said.

"I was not pleasantly surprised when I realised that trap was harder, too, with the trajectory of the targets."

Shagun, who is supported by the Olympic Gold Quest, was busy honing her skills in Italy ahead of the London Games to get acclimatized to the cold conditions she is likely to encounter during the Olympics.

"It's not only because our coach is from Italy but the conditions and climate in Italy are similar to London. In India, it gets really hot to train," she said.

The shooter believes that despite all the training it will be important to perform in the actual event and live up to all the expectations.

"These are my first Olympics. I would, obviously, want to make the best of it. Irrespective of my training, how I perform on the day of the competition will matter the most."