“The Whole Idea Is to Anticipate Every Challenge and Prepare for It”: Ronak Pandit ahead of 2026 Asian Games

After a highly successful Commonwealth Games for India in Glasgow, focus now shifts to the Asian Games – which are set to take place in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, from the 19th of September to the 4th of October. Indian shooters will be back in action after delivering back-to-back impressive performances in World Cups.

RevSportz spoke to Ronak Pandit, eminent ex shooter, high performance manager of the Indian shooting team, and currently the coach of Esha Singh, the World-Record holder. He shared his valuable insights on practice, preparation and mindset ahead of the Asian Games.

The conversation which took place before the ISSF Hangzhou World Cup, also shed light on the kind of preparation that the athletes need to undertake before walking into any competition of such grand stature. Before the shooters left for Hangzhou, a well-organised camp took place in Delhi, to which he added, “The focus is mainly to prepare the athletes and it happens before every international competition. The aim is to get all of them ready in one place, do some match and final simulations and ensure that the Athlete Monitoring System is done regularly. Basically, to keep a track of the psychological and physical well-being of the athletes and work on strengthening them before a competition”.

When asked to compare what the shooting scene looked like at the Asian Games, when he competed and won the silver in 2006, to that of now, he stressed that the setup was totally different. “The competition used to take place on electronic targets but all our training used to take place on paper targets. No strength and conditioning trainer, no physiotherapist and no psychologist either. It was more of willpower than systematic training. We also used to reach the venue one day before the event to practice on electronic targets, so of course there were a lot of challenges. The athletes today, on the other hand, are training on electronic targets with the best equipment that they can import. There is a team of technical coaches. Which is why you also see much better performances now.”

He spoke about Esha, who is currently a world record holder. Hence all eyes will be on her at the Asian Games, following her back-to-back Gold Medals at the Munich and Hangzhou World Cups, all in a span of two months. He mentioned, “When you enter a competition as an underdog, it is much easier to perform because there is no burden of expectations. No matter how talented and experienced an athlete is, at the end of the day they are human beings, and pressure gets to anyone and everyone of us. The whole idea is to anticipate all the challenges that we could face at a competition and prepare for it.”

He even admitted, “There is no running away from facts. We have to be ready for it all. Now, we are completely focusing on disturbance training and pressure training. On a good day, you automatically fall into rhythm. But with expectations, it does get more challenging. We are trying to keep her completely on conscious control”.

When asked about Jaspal Rana’s demise and how big of a void is his absence going to be for Indian shooting, Ronak was very candid with his thoughts. “It is a deep void. Me and Jaspal have had our ups and downs but we have also won medals together as a team for the country. He was a very important part of the team coaching unit. It took us a lot time to come to terms with it. It is truly a void which you cannot replace.”

Additionally, when asked if the exclusion of Shooting from the 2026 Commonwealth Games is going to affect the ecosystem of the sport, he noted that Shooting is set to be back in action when India hosts the event in 2030.

“It is sad that the Commonwealth fraternity chose to keep shooting as an optional sport and took it out, but I am pretty sure when the CWG is back in India in 2030, shooting will also be back. The ecosystem doesn’t really get affected as such, but the way India had performed in Commonwealth Games that used to act as a great source of motivation for the athletes and the country. That is something that gets missed”.

The post “The Whole Idea Is to Anticipate Every Challenge and Prepare for It”: Ronak Pandit ahead of 2026 Asian Games appeared first on Sports News Portal | Revsportz.