Who is Swapnil Kusale? All you need to know about the Indian shooter competing at the Paris Olympics 2024
Swapnil Kusale is a part of the Indian shooting contingent in the Paris Olympics 2024. The 29-year-old does not have much experience in the sport but has done well in the limited tournaments he has participated in. In 2015, Kusale bagged the limelight after winning the gold medal in the 50-metre rifle prone 3 at the Asian Shooting Championship in Kuwait.
After that, he won two gold medals in the 50-meter rifle prone and 50-meter rifle 3 position events in the National Shooting Championships in Tughlakabad and Thiruvananthapuram, respectively.
Kusale joined the Maharashtra government’s primary program in sports in 2009. After training hard for a year, he chose shooting as his sport. Lakshya Sports has sponsored Kusale since 2013.
How did Swapnil Kusale qualify for the Paris Olympics 2024?
Earlier this year, in May, Swapnil Kusale made his way through to the Paris Olympics. He and Aishwary Pratap Tomar, qualified for the 50-metre Rifle 3 Positions discipline at the quadrennial event. Kusale was one of the two top shooters from the qualification rounds in the Olympic Selection Trials 4 at the MP State Shooting Academy ranges in Bhopal.
Kusale finished second in the standings after his first three scores in the trials. During the same selection trails, Sift Kaur Samra and Anjum Moudgil booked their berth to Paris in the 50-metre Rifle 3 Positions event.
Back in October 2022, Kusale was one of the Olympic quota winners from India in shooting along with Bhowneesh Mendiratta and Rudrankksh Bhalasaheb Patil. He had finished fourth in the World Championships in Cairo, Egypt, and qualified with a score of 593.
He agonizingly missed out on winning the bronze medal after falling 0.3 points short of Norway’s Hermann Hegg. Earlier that season, he also won the silver medal in the World Cup in Baku.