Heena trains her gun on world championship

Heena Sidhu is relishing her maiden individual Commonwealth Games gold medal. The achievement is all the more satisfying for her as it came in 25m pistol, which is not her pet event. The 28-year-old has now set her eyes on the World Championship in Changwon, Korea, which begins the process of offering quota places for 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Heena, who had lost out to prodigious Manu Bhakar in her main event -- 10m air pistol -- for a silver, feels she needs to work on her technique. “This my first individual Commonwealth gold, so I am quite happy. We have been really working hard on the 25m pistol. So it is a good feeling to get a gold. But we still need to work a lot on technique and execution, and how I do in a match. I think there is still a lot to be done in air pistol. Sports pistol I am still learning, and I can cut myself some slack but not in air pistol. It's a work in progress going,” Heena told DH.

And while she values her performance in the Commonwealth Games and hopes to keep it up at the Asian Games, it is World Championship where she wishes to peak. The 52nd World Championships will be held from August 31 to September 15 in Changwon, nearly overlapping with Asian Games scheduled at Jakarta, Indonesia from August 18 to September 2.

“I am very thankful to the federation for not sending us to the USA World Cup because 90 percent of the players were thinking the same. Training is more important and World championship is where you want to be at your best,” said Heena, who became the first pistol shooter to win a gold medal at World Cup final in Munich, Germany.

Heena, however, was quick to shoot down any talk about her rivalry with Manu. “She is doing her job, I am doing my job. She is a small kid, she is 16, she is doing well, but there's so much she needs to know more. Shooting is such a sport, you have good times, you have bad times. She has to find her own way.”

Meanwhile, veteran Tejaswini Sawant was a picture of calm and joy with her double conquest of a silver in the women's 50m rifle prone and a gold in the 50m rifle 3 position. The 37-year-old previously had won two gold medals in 2006 and two silver and a bronze in 2010, the same year she had won the World Championship gold in prone. “We call this event a marathon and to get medals after putting in the hard works assures us that we are on the right path,” she beamed.