Three years ago, Kamaljeet Singh was lying in a hospital bed, battling serious injuries after an accident. Today, the 23-year-old is an Asian Games gold medallist.
Kamaljeet won the 10m air pistol mixed team event with Suruchi Singh at the 20th Asian Games. It was his maiden Asian Games gold, which kicked off India's gold hunt in Nagoya. India finished with 85 medals, including 21 gold.
He had imagined this moment before. But when it finally happened, he needed a few seconds to take it in.
“When they put the medal around my neck, I picked it up and kept looking at it for two or four seconds, thinking, this is what an Asian Games gold is like,” Kamaljeet recalled.
The accident that almost ended his shooting journey
Kamaljeet’s journey to the Asian Games podium has been anything but easy. He was introduced to shooting by his uncle and began his journey in 2019. He quickly showed promise, winning gold in the men’s 50m pistol individual event at the ISSF Junior World Championships in 2023.
Unfortunately, in the same year, he suffered an auto-rickshaw accident that changed everything. He suffered serious injuries and his family had to take loans to help pay his hospital bills. For Kamaljeet, giving up shooting seemed like a real possibility. But his family and coach kept pushing him to continue.
“When I got injured, I would have left shooting then itself, but because my coach and my family kept forcing me, ‘Keep doing it, keep doing it’, I stayed with shooting.
“And financially too, my family’s condition was not that good but they wanted me to continue shooting. They never told me that we didn’t have money or anything like that.
"I would tell them, and they would simply give me the money. So, for me, my family would handle everything. I only had to do shooting.”
Kamaljeet’s Asian Games gold turned his home village of Sulkha in Haryana’s Rewari district into a celebration. The victory was marked like a festival, with the entire village coming together to welcome its new champion. “As soon as I landed in India, the entire village had reached the airport. I was getting nervous because the entire village had come,” he said.
“The other children who were coming had maybe two or three family members there, but my entire village had reached there. As soon as I came out through the gate, everyone lifted me onto their shoulders and just started dancing. “So I was a little like, what is happening? I mean, like this, in front of everyone.”
For Kamaljeet, it was a moment that was difficult to put into words. “The feeling was very good.”
The next target: Olympic qualification
Now, he has another target in sight. Kamaljeet’s next major challenge is the World Championship in November, where an Olympic quota for India will be at stake.
“There is the World Championship in Doha. It starts on November 1, and there is an Olympic quota there,” he said. “So if I can win an Olympic quota for India, that would be very good. Otherwise, there are many more opportunities. There is still a full year.”
“But I will try to win an Olympic quota for India and represent India at the Olympics.”
