Rapid fire is my favoured event: Rahi Sarnobat

Mumbai: Young shooter Rahi Sarnobat, who created history recently in South Korea by becoming the first male or female pistol shooter from India to win a gold medal in an ISSF World Cup, on Thursday said she generally does well in finals and rapid fire is her favoured event.

"I am very good in finals. Rapid fire (and not precision) is my favoured thing," said the 22-year-old Rahi at a felicitation function. "There are advantages as well as disadvantages under the new rules of shooting in which all finalists start on equal footing (with no points carried forward from the qualification stages)," said Rahi, who won the gold medal in 25m sports pistol event in Changwon, Korea, earlier this month.

A team gold medallist and individual silver medallist in the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, Kolhapur-born Rahi, edged out her Korean rival Kyeongae Kim 8-6 in the fight for the gold.

After two tied series, Rahi, who had finished a distant 19th in the London Olympics last year, was first to get off the block in the third and opened up a two point lead. But Kim hit back immediately winning the next two series to take a 6-4 lead and push the Indian to the corner.

Facing a must-win situation, Rahi upped the ante while her opponent struggled to keep her composure and lost the sixth and seventh series 3-1 and 2-1 respectively to hand the gold to the Indian.

Rahi said her opponent, expectedly, got overwhelming support from the crowd during the competition and this made her very determined to have the last laugh. "After the fourth series, I was sure of a medal. She got 95 per cent support when she won the fifth. I told myself...let her get as many claps now, but after the final round it is I who would get the maximum claps (for winning the gold)," she said.

The young shooter, who was not aware that she had created history in Korea when she clinched the gold, is now focused on four big events to be held over the next three years. "I wasn't aware that I am the first pistol shooter from India to achieve this feat till my team-mates told me. But now I want to focus on qualifying for the 2016 Olympic Games (in Rio de Janeiro) after doing well in next year's World Championship (in Granada), Commonwealth Games (in Glasgow, Scotland) and Asian Games (Incheon, South Korea)," she said.