Anjum with silver medal and coach Deepali Deshpande.
Wgile his granddaughter, Chandigarh girl and Punjab shooter Anjum Moudgill, won the silver medal in the women’s 50 m A Rifle 3 positions event at the Commonwealth Games in Australia, 88-year-old R N Moudgill was busy clicking pictures with Anjum’s camera of the medal ceremony on TV at their home in Sector 37. The 23-year-old Anjum won her second silver medal in a month after winning the first silver in last month’s ISSF World Cup in Mexico and it was celebration time at the Moudgill home.
“I cannot describe my feelings in words. When she missed the medal in yesterday’s prone event, we were a little disappointed, but today’s medal has brought us cheers. My father RN Moudgill was clicking pictures of Anjum’s medal ceremony on TV and it is the best gift for the whole family. During the last five years, we have never accompanied Anjum to a tournament and she does her packing on her own and goes to compete in our SUV. This time, we will not let her do that and will bring her to Chandigarh with the medal,” said Anjum’s father 63-year-old advocate Sudershan Moudgill.
Anjum, who shot a score of 589 in the qualification round to make a new CWG record, initially started in pistol shooting at the Sector 25 Shooting Range before competing in the air rifle events at Sacred Heart School under the Chandigarh NCC Directorate. Moudgill, who won the gold medal in the 50 m 3 P event at the South Asian Games in 2016, also won the silver medal at the 10 m air rifle event at the World University Games in Poland last year. Last year, the youngster, a sub-inspector of Punjab Police, won silver and bronze at the Commonwealth Championships in Brisbane.
“It was her school holidays and we took her to the Sector 25 Shooting Range where NCC shooters were preparing. Since she was not part of the team at that time, they did not allow her to shoot and some other shooters gave her the pistol to try shooting. She liked the sport and later, Col Mohan Inder Singh Chauhan, who was the Group Commander of the NCC unit, put her in rifle shooting. Nowadays, whenever she comes home, she goes to the Punjab Armed Police Range in Jalandhar for practice and this time, we will ask her to spend some time at home, too,” shared Anjum’s mother 55-year-old Shubh Moudgill, a teacher with the Punjab education department in Kurali.
In the prone event on Thursday, Anjum faced some technical issues with her rifle and missed the medal. National coach Deepali Deshpande rates Anjum’s Friday performance highly. “We were both upset due to the technical glitch on Thursday. But Anjum came out of it and shot a games record score in qualification. This shows her strength as a shooter and handling such pressure will motivate her,” said Deshpande from Australia.