Gagan Narangਗਗਨ ਨਾਰੰਗ

Gagan Narang (born 6 May 1983) is an Indian rifle shooter from Chennai, raised in Hyderabad, who won the bronze medal in the men's 10m air rifle at the London 2012 Olympics. His final score of 701.1 made him India's first medallist at those Games, and only the third Indian shooter ever to win an Olympic medal.

Early life

Gagan Narang was born on 6 May 1983 in Chennai, then called Madras, in Tamil Nadu. His parents are Bhimsen Narang and Amarjit, and the family is Punjabi Hindu Arora. The Narangs hail from Simla Gujran village in Panipat district, Haryana. His father was a chief manager with Air India, and his job took the family to Hyderabad, where Gagan grew up.

Gagan went to Gitanjali Senior School in Hyderabad and later earned a Bachelor of Computer Applications degree from Osmania University. Shooting entered his life early. According to his father, Gagan shot a balloon with a toy pistol when he was only two years old. His father gave him an air pistol in 1997, and the young Gagan practised in the backyard of the family home in Begumpet.

The family background mattered. Shooting in India in the 1990s was an expensive sport with little infrastructure, and Gagan's parents went well beyond their means to support him. He has said his parents, who came from a middle class background with working class jobs, sacrificed a great deal so that he could keep shooting.

Rise through the ranks

Narang's first big win came at home. At the Afro-Asian Games in Hyderabad in 2003, he won gold in the men's 10m air rifle on 26 October 2003. Three years later he won air rifle gold at the World Cup in Guangzhou, and then announced himself on the biggest stage at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, winning four gold medals: the 10m air rifle individual and pairs, and the 50m rifle three positions individual and pairs.

He made his Olympic debut at Athens 2004, finishing 12th in the 10m air rifle. At a pre-Olympic event in Hannover, Germany, he shot 704.3 in the air rifle, a score higher than the world record of 703.1 held by Thomas Farnik of Austria. Then in 2008 he won gold at the World Cup in China and qualified for the World Cup Final in Bangkok. There he shot a perfect 600 in qualification and 103.5 in the final, a total of 703.5 that set a new world record on 4 November 2008.

That date stayed with him for another reason. It was the day Barack Obama was first elected President of the United States, and Narang has often said Obama's oratory and rise inspired him. At the Beijing Olympics the same year, Narang finished ninth in the 10m air rifle, 13th in the 50m rifle three positions and 35th in the 50m rifle prone. He was close to the final in his main event, but not close enough.

How did Gagan Narang win Olympic bronze?

Narang was the first Indian athlete to qualify for the London 2012 Olympics, and he arrived there as one of the favourites in the 10m air rifle. The final took place on 30 July 2012. He had qualified with 598, and in the final he held his nerve through ten shots to finish with a total of 701.1. Alin George Moldoveanu of Romania won gold with 702.1, and Niccolo Campriani of Italy took silver with 701.5, just four tenths of a point ahead of Narang.

The bronze was India's first medal of the London Games, and it made Narang only the third Indian shooter to win an Olympic medal, after Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore's silver in 2004 and Abhinav Bindra's gold in 2008. He called it the one medal missing from his cabinet. The win brought cash awards from state governments, including 10 million rupees from Haryana, 5 million rupees each from Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan, and 2 million rupees from the Steel Ministry, along with 2 kg of gold from Sahara India Pariwar.

Narang also competed in two more events in London, finishing 18th in the 50m rifle prone and 20th in the 50m rifle three positions, without reaching either final. The air rifle bronze, though, was the medal that defined his career, and it came in the event he had chased since he first picked up a rifle as a boy in Hyderabad.

Commonwealth and Asian Games record

Narang's Commonwealth Games record is remarkable. At the Delhi Games in 2010, in front of a home crowd, he repeated his Melbourne feat with four more gold medals: the 10m air rifle individual and pairs, and the 50m rifle three positions individual and pairs. In the 10m air rifle singles he shot a perfect 600, a new Games record. Across the two Games he won eight Commonwealth gold medals.

At the Asian Games in Guangzhou in 2010, Narang won silver in the individual 10m air rifle and another silver in the team event with Abhinav Bindra and Sanjeev Rajput, behind China. Both silvers came on the opening day of the Games. Earlier, at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, he had won three bronze medals. He also won bronze in the 10m air rifle at the World Championships in Munich in 2010.

At the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014 he added a silver in the 50m rifle prone and a bronze in the 50m rifle three positions. By then he had also won three gold medals at ISSF World Cup events. His fourth Olympics came at Rio 2016, where he finished 23rd in the 10m air rifle, 13th in the 50m rifle prone and 33rd in the 50m rifle three positions.

Giving back: Gun for Glory and Paris 2024

Even at the peak of his career, Narang was thinking about the next generation. In 2011 he founded the Gun for Glory shooting academy, starting in Pune and run through the Gagan Narang Sports Promotion Foundation. It has since grown to more than 15 cities across India, with a Project Leap programme to give the most talented young shooters top class training and facilities. His aim, as he has put it, was to give children the facilities he did not have while growing up, and to help shooting become a mass sport in India.

The honours came as his career grew. He received the Arjuna Award in 2005, presented by President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam in 2006. He was conferred the Padma Shri in 2011, and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, India's highest sporting honour, for 2010, presented by President Pratibha Patil on 29 August 2011. He also served as a member of the Padma Awards Committee in 2023.

The Khel Ratna itself came after a public row. In August 2010, after being overlooked for the award three times, Narang said he would skip the Delhi Commonwealth Games for lack of motivation. His family and fans persuaded him to play, and he answered with four gold medals. A year later the award was his.

After competition, Narang stayed at the centre of Indian sport. He was a television commentator and mentor, and in July 2024 the Indian Olympic Association named him Chef de Mission of the Indian contingent for the Paris Olympics, after M. C. Mary Kom resigned from the role in April. He had been deputy Chef de Mission, and the association's president, P. T. Usha, called him an apt replacement, noting that he was a four-time Olympian and an Olympic medallist himself.

What is Gagan Narang known for today?

Gagan Narang is known first as the shooter who won India's first medal at London 2012, and as one of the most decorated rifle shooters India has produced, with eight Commonwealth Games gold medals and a world record to his name. He is also known as the mentor behind Gun for Glory, the academy that has carried Indian rifle shooting forward into a new generation.

His Punjab connection is his family, not his home state. He was born in Chennai and raised in Hyderabad, and his family roots lie in Simla Gujran village in Panipat district, Haryana. The Narangs are a Punjabi family, and his story sits in the Kosh beside other Punjabi shooters, above all Abhinav Bindra, his partner in the gold medal winning 10m air rifle pairs at the Delhi Commonwealth Games in 2010. Narang has been supported through much of his career by the Olympic Gold Quest, and away from the range he is a keen wildlife photographer.