Rudrankksh Patil 'Excited' for 50m Rifle 3P After Medals

Looking Ahead to Friday's Event

Speaking after this success, he has put his focus on the 50m Rifle 3 Positions event, which is slated to take place on the coming Friday. "So, this is my first time participating in the Games in double events and this is my second year after starting 3P," he said, highlighting the relative novelty of competing across multiple disciplines at a single edition of the Games.

Confidence Rooted in Team Support

"So, I'm very excited to play it out and I have good coaching, good guidance, good support from all the support staff and the Indian team which can help me, which I have to just follow and I think everything will be fine," he replied to an IANS query during a roundtable interaction with media following his twin medal wins.

Coaching Advice on Staying Grounded

He shared the coaches' advice of keeping things simple and focusing on shooting rather than predicting medal finishes, an approach he believes can eventually lead him to win a medal in the upcoming event. "But our coaches have said that 'you have shot a certain score and that led to your selection during the tournament. You don't have to shoot anything extraordinary. You have to just shoot your daily thing, and that is just going to be enough'. And for the 3P finals and all, I myself am very excited to see how well I can perform, how well I can do in this event," he added.

Reflecting on the Individual Final

Patil was in gold medal position during the individual 10m final but dropped down later, ultimately settling for bronze. He stated that nerves played a role in the slip-up as the pressure of the situation built up over the course of the final.

A Strong Start Followed by Mounting Pressure

"So when we started with the finals, I had a strong start, which gave me confidence that today is my day. I'm doing really well. But at the same time, because I was rank one for a pretty long time and this year, I haven't played that many finals, so when I came into these finals, I wasn't so very confident," he explained, offering insight into the psychological challenge of maintaining composure at the top of a competitive field with limited recent final experience.

Training Finals Helped, But Nerves Still Crept In

"But we had a lot of training finals, which boosted my confidence a bit for the finals, which made me feel at home at the final range also. But as I was climbing up, knowing that I was in the gold medal position, it was going very well that started building up a bit of nervousness inside of me. And I think I could have handled it a bit better. But here we are with a bronze, so I'm happy with that also," he told the media, offering a candid and reflective account of both the mental challenge he faced and his overall satisfaction with the eventual outcome.