My Diary 2024: Swapnil Kusale – 2024 gave me Olympic bronze, but road to winning gold at LA begins in 2025

2024 will always remain in my memories. Firstly, I won the Olympic bronze medal and secondly it happened in my birth month (I won the Olympic medal on August 1 and August 6 is my birthday).

Obviously the bronze medal belongs to the nation first. When I visited the Chateauroux Shooting Range earlier for the Olympic Test event, there were no flags or Olympic Rings. My focus at that time was to concentrate on my practice and to shoot to the best of my abilities. Since we trained there for a while, it helps each of us to gauge the weather and get used to the range. These factors play a huge role in shaping up your ultimate goal.

My goal is to ultimately win the Olympic gold. And the bronze medal at Paris is a step in that direction. Every year that you spend is a journey towards the goal and this will be no different.

We had reached Chateauroux four days prior and the fact that we missed the opening ceremony was a blessing in disguise as it worked in our favour. The only thing which I get affected by are the conditions and the situations. Once I am able to focus on overcoming them and adjusting to the conditions, then there is nothing called pressure. The mind is too occupied on getting the important things sorted first and it helps to get rid of the pressure factor. When Manu Bhaker won bronze and later combined with Sarabjot Singh to win mixed team bronze, it only added to my confidence that something good is happening for Indian shooting and I can also play a part in it.

Swapnil Kusale of India reacts during the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Men event of the Shooting competitions in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Shooting centre in Chateauroux, France.(PTI)

So the week prior to my event, the only thing I thought was to make my mind and the body ready for the event and do whatever I could do to achieve that balance in training as well off training. I am lactose intolerant and in my early days as a shooter, I would struggle with finding the right food when travelling abroad. But once I adjusted and we sorted things, that was not a worry at all. So every tournament or experience teaches me something and my thoughts in Paris were always that if I have reached here, then I need to do my best in the things I can control.

In 2011, when I chose to compete with the .22 rifle, the only reason was that shooting with live ammunition fascinated me. The way wind and distance plays its part and shooting in the three positions — standing, kneeling and prone — made me realise early that I have to master those first and then the mind and other things come into play. Whether individual or team medals, I have always felt that each experience made me learn something — whether he 2022 Cairo World Championship team bronze medal or 2022 Baku World Cup silver medal or winning an Olympic quota berth for India or winning my spot in the Olympic trials, I took valuable lessons back.

While competing, I have never seen wind or distance as a distracting factor. I saw them as challenges and when I tried to tackle those, it also helped me to not let external pressure get the better of me. The only thing I worry about prior to a competition is to get my body and mind in shape and strike the right balance. I would talk with my parents Suresh Mahadev Kusale and Anita Kusale, coach Deepali Deshpande and Physio Sumita Jain to achieve that.

If there is one thing which I have learnt every year is to not think about pressure. I have also not worried about any particular series. My aim is to give my best shot in every series and to analyse what more I could have done and not about what I did or why I did. Maybe that works to my advantage and that was the same on that day in Paris.

During the qualification and final at Paris it was too windy. So the only thought that was going inside me was to keep looking at the wind flag and decide whether to take the shot or delay the shot depending on the speed.

When I was assured of the medal, I was definitely chasing the gold, but that didn’t happen. The realization of winning the bronze medal and celebrating it came only when I was on the podium. And as I said before, it’s only a step towards the goal.

Returning to India, when I met my family as well as friends, who had supported me while staying at boarding school first at Nasik and then at Pune, and my coaches, the biggest joy was to see the joy on their faces. Having Pooran Poli and Modak during Ganpati festival and Diwali too has always been one of my memories every year and like previous years, I enjoyed that. Apart from that, I enjoy listening to devotional songs and they also help me to keep my mind occupied ahead of an event.

As for the years ahead, each year is a step in the direction of reaching my goal — to win an Olympic gold. There will be World Cup and World Championships and the focus will be to get my technique stronger as well keeping the body fit. The key will be how to maintain my form in these events like I have done all these years. It’s not about restarting or setting new goals. The goal remains the same, to win the Olympic gold. And for that, every step matters for me.

— As told to Nitin Sharma