Mairaj Ahmad Khan was born into an affluent shooting family, as his father, brother and uncles were state-level trap shooters. Despite been surrounded by professional shooters, a young Mairaj fell in love with cricket and dreamt of playing for India one day. But, cricket could only remain a weekend hobby and he soon started shooting after finishing college in 1998. Mairaj became a professional shooter and won his first gold at the 2007 National Shooting Championship in Delhi.
He went on to bag the gold medal again in 2009, 2010, and 2016 editions of the championship.
Mairaj made his international debut during the ISSF World Cup at Lonato, Italy in the year 2003. For almost a decade (2005 to 2015) he participated in 15 ISSF World Cups held in 22 nations but didn’t win any medals.
He bagged his first international gold in a skeet shooting team event and a bronze in the individual category respectively at the 2008 Singapore Open Shooting Championship.
Mairaj was also a member of the Indian skeet team that bagged the gold medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi and the 2011 Asian Shotgun Championship in Kuala Lumpur. The Indian marksman sealed the Rio 2016 quota place at the 2015 World Championship in Lonato, Italy, but fell short of making the medal round after a loss in the shoot-off at the Rio Games.
Age - 45
Sports/Discipline - Men’s Skeet (shooting)
Working Ranking - 14
First Olympic Games - Rio de Janeiro, 2016
Major Achievements
- Gold - Men’s team skeet event, 2021, ISSF World Cup, New Delhi
- Silver - Asian Championship, 2019, in Doha, Qatar.
- Silver - Men’s skeet event, 2016, ISSF World Cup, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.
- Bronze - Men’s individual event, Asian Shotgun Shooting Championship, Abu Dhabi
Commonwealth Games
Gold - Men’s team skeet event, CWG, New Delhi
Tokyo Olympics Qualification
After becoming the first Indian skeet shooter to represent the country at the previous edition in 2016, Mairaj will be competing in his successive Olympics after bagging the silver medal at the 2019 Asian Championship in Doha and booked his berth for Tokyo 2020.
Recent Performances
Mairaj recently bagged the gold in the men’s team skeet event, at the 2021 ISSF World Cup, in New Delhi.
2016 Rio Olympics Performance
Even though he became the first Indian skeet shooter to qualify for the Olympics at Rio, he fell short of making the medal round after a loss in the shoot-off.
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