'It's Not Like We're The God Of This Sport': Rudrankksh Patil Opens Up On Pressure, Perfection After Asian Games Success

Rudrankksh Patil etched his name into Indian shooting history on Monday, becoming part of a landmark day at the Asian Games 2026 as he claimed two medals in a single event — team silver and individual bronze in the men's 10m air rifle — helping create the first instance of two Indians sharing an individual podium in the same event at these Games, alongside teammate Himanshu Dhillon's silver.

The individual final was a rollercoaster for Patil. He was, for long stretches, the man to beat — leading after the opening series with 52.8, stretching his advantage to 1.1 points after the second series, and still on top with 127.4 after 12 shots. But shooting at this level leaves no margin for even small slips, and a couple of costly scores in the closing stages saw him overtaken, eventually finishing on 230.9 to settle for bronze — agonisingly just 0.1 points behind Himanshu.

It's a familiar arc for Patil, whose career has been built on bouncing back. A former World Champion at just 18 — only the second Indian after Abhinav Bindra to win the men's 10m air rifle world title, at Cairo 2022 — he has since added Asian Games team gold (Hangzhou 2022/23), multiple Asian Championship golds, and individual World Cup titles in Cairo and Buenos Aires to his résumé.

Missing out on Paris 2024 selection could have derailed a lesser athlete; instead, Patil kept adding to his medal cabinet, and this Asian Games double should only sharpen his belief heading into the next Olympic cycle.

'It's Not Like We Are The God Of This Sport'

What stood out this time, by his own account, was the mental preparation behind the performance. "During the camp, we had heart rate monitors strapped on our chest to… because we knew that this is a high-pressure match, and we get a lot of heart rate variability issues during that time. A lot of heart rate is going up and down suddenly," Patil explained in his interaction with Outlook India.

"It is our responsibility as an athlete to at least settle down our bodies, because if our heart rate is going very high, we cannot shoot. So we were taught a lot of breathing exercises and the ways to calm down doing that place, leaving the camp and all, which helped us during the matches."

That training paid off. "Indirectly, you know, got us all a better position during the finals, and of course, we have that in mind that, you know, we have to win gold, but again, it's not like, you know, we are the best or the god of this sport," he said. "We make some error, we have some issues, and sometimes it's gold, sometimes it's silver, sometimes it's bronze, sometimes it's just fourth rank, but all of this doesn't stop us from not going to the range. It actually motivates us to keep on pushing forward."