Anjali Bhagwat (born 5 December 1969) is a professional

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

sport shooter Shooting sports is a group of competitive and recreational sporting activities involving proficiency tests of accuracy, precision and speed in shooting — the art of using ranged weapons, mainly small arms (firearms and airguns, in forms such as ...

. She became the World Number One in 10m Air Rifle in 2002. She also won her first World Cup Final in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, in 2003, with a score of 399/400. Anjali won the ISSF Champion of Champions award and is the only Indian to win the ISSF Champions' Trophy in Air Rifle Men & Women mixed event at

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

in 2002. She has represented India in three consecutive Olympics, and was a finalist in the

2000 Sydney Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from ...

, a first for any Indian women shooter and also the first Indian athlete to make an Olympic final since

P.T. Usha Pilavullakandi Thekkeraparambil Usha (born 27 June 1964) is a retired Indian track and field athlete. She was born in Kuthali, Kozhikode, Kerala. She has been associated with Indian athletics since 1979. She has won 4 Asian gold medals and ...

in 1984. She has won 12 gold and 4 silver medals in the

Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games, often referred to as the Friendly Games or simply the Comm Games, are a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930, and, with the exce ...

and

Commonwealth Shooting Championships The Commonwealth Shooting Federation Championships is a shooting championship for Commonwealth countries. Organised by the Commonwealth Shooting Federation, it is typically held as a test event for the Commonwealth Games to validate the preparation ...

. She is a Commonwealth record holder in 10m Air Rifle and Sports Rifle 3P. In the 2003 Afro-Asian Games, Bhagwat created history by becoming the first Indian woman shooter to get gold and a silver medal in the Sports 3P and Air Rifle events respectively. To date, she has won 31 Gold, 23 Silver and 7 Bronze medals. She has set 13 new records in international competitions and has won 55 Gold, 35 Silver and 16 Bronze medals, with 8 new records in national competitions in India.

Early life

Anjali Ramakant Vedpathak was born on 5 December 1969, in a Marathi family in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

. Inspired by the legendary athlete

Carl Lewis Frederick Carlton Lewis (born July 1, 1961) is an American former track and field athlete who won nine Olympic gold medals, one Olympic silver medal, and 10 World Championships medals, including eight gold. His career spanned from 1979 to 1996 ...

, Bhagwat developed an interest in sports. Her first brush with shooting occurred during her stint as a cadet in the National Cadet Corps (NCC). A student of

Judo is an unarmed modern Japanese martial art, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia Nipponica, "Judo"). ...

Karate and advanced mountaineering, Bhagwat was very much attracted to NCC. She joined Kirti College in

mainly due to its close affinity with the NCC. As a part of her curriculum she got into MRA (Maharashtra Rifle Association). She started shooting at the age of 21 and within 7 days of holding a gun, she took part in the National Championship of 1988, winning a silver medal for Maharashtra in the process.

Career

Sanjay Chakravarthy was her first coach. She credits him for her strong fundamentals and basics; instilled over a period of over 5 years. She turned pro when she first participated in the National Championships in 1988. She won Silver for her state and continues to play for the Maharashtra team. Her tally of 55 Gold, 35 Silver and 16 Bronze medals in domestic Competitions is unbeaten. She participated in her first international event in 1995, in the

SAF games The South Asian Games (SAG or SA Games), formerly known as the South Asian Federation Games (SAFG or SAF Games), is a quadrennial multi-sport event held among the athletes from South Asia. The governing body of these games is South Asia Olympic ...

. Her first international Gold winning performance was in the Commonwealth Championship in Auckland in 1999, where she won 3 Gold medals and a silver medal in Air Rifle, 3P individual and the team event. She is the only woman to have won the

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

for

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. She considers her rival Galkina Lioubov (Russia) as an idol competitor. In December 1999, she started training under Laszlo Szucsak, the then coach for the Indian Shooting Team. Bhagwat had personally approached Laszlo after watching his work with the Malaysian Shooting squad. The Hungarian remained with the team for a year during which Bhagwat earned a wild card entry in the

, where she went on to become one of the finalists. From 2001 to 2004, Bhagwat trained without a coach, and still managed to become World Number One in 2002. During the year 2006, Laszlo re-joined the national shooting squad as the team Coach, and Bhagwat trained with him till 2008. In the year 2008, Stanislav Lapidus was appointed the coach by the Indian National Army for the national squad. Many stalwarts of the sport of shooting often rate

World Championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

higher than the Olympics. Bhagwat has ranked her victory as the Champions of Champions in 2002 as the best moment in her career. She still remains the only Indian to have ever won the title.

Competitions

Equipment and sponsors

Bhagwat uses a Feinwerkbau, a German-made rifle for her Air Rifle events. For 10m she prefers a Feinwerkbau while for 50m she uses a .22 Walther. Bhagwat's first kit was gifted to her by

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...

actor and a fellow shooter,

Nana Patekar Vishwanath Patekar (born 1 January 1951), better known as Nana Patekar, is an Indian actor, screenwriter, film maker, and a former Indian Territorial Army officer, mainly working in Hindi and Marathi cinema. He is regarded as one of the finest an ...

in 1993. She was officially sponsored by the Hinduja Foundation in 2000, and later by the

Mittal Champions Trust Mittal Champions Trust (2005 to 2014) was a trust which supported Indian athletes with world-beating potential. It was funded by Lakshmi Mittal and was initiated by his son-in-law Amit Bhatia. It was founded on 9 November 2005 by Mahesh Bhupath ...

in 2008.

Hyundai Corporation Hyundai Corporation () is a South Korean company founded in 1976 as part of the Hyundai '' chaebol''. It is a general trading company providing export and import services with a wide variety of products including marine vessels, industrial plan ...

also supported her training prior to 2004.

Awards

Rajiv Gandhi Khel-Ratna (2003)
Arjuna Award (2000) *1992:Shree Shiv Chattrapati Award *1993:Maharashtra Gaurav Puraskar *1993:Vasantrav Naik Pratishthan Puraskar *2002:Indo-American Societ

Young Achiever award *2003:Times Group Maharashtra Shaan *2003:Hero Indian Sports Award -Best sportswoman *2003:HISA Sports Woman of the year *2003:HISA Shooter of the year *2004:HISA Shooter of the year *2005:GR8 women achievers award *2005:Teacher's achievement award *2006:F I E Foundation National award

Personal life

Bhagwat has two siblings; a younger brother Rahul and an elder sister Neena. She is a

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

and

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

enthusiast.

Yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consci ...

and

meditation Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought, or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm ...

form a large part of her daily routine. Her mother sang for AIR (All India Radio) while her sister is a singer too. An avid reader, she enjoys fiction. In December 2000, she married Mumbai-based businessman, Mandar Bhagwat. The couple has a son named Aa radhya born in 2010. In 2006, she shifted her base from

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

due city's better sporting facilities. Bhagwat is currently coaching six shooters in Pune, for which she also utilizes her own range. The 10m range is a part of her house and she usually practises there.

In popular culture

She has promoted sports through associations with Sahara and Reliance. Bhagwat was vastly appreciated for her participation in India's bid for hosting Commonwealth Games 2010 alongside sporting legends like

Sunil Gavaskar Sunil Manohar Gavaskar (Marathi pronunciation: uniːl ɡaːʋəskəɾ ; born 10 July 1949), is an Indian cricket commentator and former cricketer who represented India and Bombay from 1971 to 1987. Gavaskar is acknowledged as one of the grea ...

. Bhagwat was a part of the

Bournvita Quiz Contest The ''Cadbury Bournvita Quiz Contest'' is an Indian quiz contest that began on 12 April 1972. Sponsored by Cadbury India, it is one of India's most famous quiz contests. Originally held live in cities across the country, it later became a radio ...

as a special guest. She was also a part of the expert panel on

CNN-IBN CNN-News18 (originally CNN-IBN) is an Indian English-language news television channel founded by Raghav Bahl based in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. It is currently co-owned by Network18 Group and Warner Bros. Discovery. CNN provides internat ...

during the

in 2006 and 2010. She featured in the Hero Honda Sports Awards, 2007 where she sang and danced impromptu with former Indian cricketers

Vinod Kambli Vinod Kambli (; born 18 January 1972) is a former Indian international Cricketer, who played for India as a left-handed middle order batsman, as well as for Mumbai and Boland, South Africa. Kambli became the first cricketer in cricket history ...

and

Ajay Jadeja Ajaysinhji Jadeja ( born 1 February 1971), known as Ajay Jadeja, is an Indian former professional cricketer, who was a regular member of the Indian cricket team between 1992 and 2000. He played 15 Test matches and 196 One Day Internationals f ...

. She has also been the subject of inspiration for many including a noted writer and columnist,

Shobha De Shobha De ('' née'' Rajadhyaksha, formerly Kilachand; born 7 January 1948) is an Indian novelist and columnist. She is best known for her depiction of socialites and sex in her works of fiction, for which she has been referred to as the "Jackie ...

, who dedicated her column to Bhagwat after their interaction at an award ceremony. She has been on the government selection panel for some of the top notch sports award, both on state & national level such as Shiv Chatrapati Award, Arjuna Award and Dronacharaya Award. Apart from this she has done a guest appearance in Marathi film '' Bokya Satbande''. She has walked ramp twice for fashion designer Vikram Phadnis. She has been teaching blind students. She regularly writes for different newspaper and magazines

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bhagwat, Anjali Living people Indian female sport shooters ISSF rifle shooters Recipients of the Khel Ratna Award Olympic shooters of India Shooters at the 2000 Summer Olympics Shooters at the 2004 Summer Olympics Shooters at the 2008 Summer Olympics Recipients of the Arjuna Award 1969 births Asian Games medalists in shooting Marathi sportspeople Shooters at the 1998 Asian Games Shooters at the 2002 Asian Games Shooters at the 2006 Asian Games Shooters at the 2014 Asian Games Sport shooters from Mumbai Commonwealth Games medallists in shooting Sportswomen from Maharashtra Commonwealth Games gold medallists for India Commonwealth Games silver medallists for India 20th-century Indian women 20th-century Indian people Asian Games silver medalists for India Medalists at the 2002 Asian Games Shooters at the 2002 Commonwealth Games Shooters at the 2006 Commonwealth Games