Parth Mane: 16-year-old Solapur shooter beats Olympic silver medalist

It was at a village fair in Solapur in 2016 that his father Rakesh Mane, an Assistant Police Inspector (CID) with Maharashtra Police, noticed his son’s natural ability to shoot. Mane Sr would get his son enrolled at a local academy’s summer training camp in 2018 before deciding to send a young Parth to his sister’s home in Pune to train.

“When we went to the fair, Parth was 8-9 years old and he shot 3-4 balloons on the first go with the small air rifle at the fair. I told him to shoot a particular balloon and he did it 5-6 times. I was also a shooter during my college days and I realized that shooting comes naturally to Parth. That’s why I made him train in shooting at Solapur. Initially he trained with the open sight rifle for one year,” shares Mane Sr.

Mane had won a bronze in the Asian Junior Championships in Jakarta and a silver in ISSF World Cup in Grenada. (ISSF)

While Mane would start training as a 10m air rifle shooter at the Model Rifle Academy, Mane Sr would also get the youngster his own rifle with his savings in 2019. Three months after getting the Walther LG 400 Bluetec Rifle, Covid-19 lockdown would mean that the youngster was confined to his Solapur home.

“As a kid, I was disappointed. I was just getting the hold of the new rifle when the lockdown happened. My father built a makeshift range made of cement and wood panels at our home and I trained there. Later when things eased out, I stayed at my aunt Rani Jadhav’s home at Pune for 10-15 days to train at an academy. And come back to Solapur to train at Model Academy,” says Mane.

In 2021 when Mane Sr was transferred to Mumbai, Mane started training under coach Suma Shirur at Lakshya Shooting Club.

“When he started training with us, there were also phases of lockdown. So, along with assistant coaches Smita Kamble and Ramesh Mali, I would conduct online sessions with him. Parth would also spend a lot of time on wall holding which helped us in finding a perfect body posture as well as a rifle holding position for him. When he shot a score of 652.7 in the sub-youth category in nationals the same year, we knew that he is a special talent. His calmness at a very young age eased out a lot of things for us as coaches,” says Shirur. In 2021, the youngster won the sub-youth national title in the nationals before making it to the Indian junior team in 2023. Earlier this year, Mane had won a bronze in the Asian Junior Championships in Jakarta and a silver in ISSF World Cup in Grenada.

On Monday, Mane had finished fourth with a score of 627.7 to qualify for the final, which also included compatriots Abhinav Shaw and Ajay Malik. In the final, Mane never slipped out of the top two positions and edged out junior Asian champion Huang Liwanlin of China to win the title. Bradesn Peiser of USA finished third and Lindgren finished fourth. Out of the 24 shots in the final, Mane shot 14 with a score of 10.5 or above.

“The only thing Parth was struggling a bit earlier was his timing of shots in the final. He was taking much more time to shoot his shot and we had to work upon that in the last one year. There are many neuro-physical aspects of this and it does not happen in a day. To win the title with Paris Olympics silver medallist in the final will add to his confidence,” says Shirur.

As for Mane, he has a small desire. “I have not met Abhinav Bindra sir. I met Arjun Babuta sir a couple of times but I am sure Bindra sir does not know about me. Maybe, this junior world title will get him to notice me and meet me someday.”