Rahi Sarnobat

Rahi Sarnobat is an Indian shooter born on 30th October 1990. She hails from the Kolhapur district of Maharashtra. She represents India internationally in a 25m air pistol.

Rahi Sarnobat - Early Life, Family & Background

Rahi Sarnobat was born to Jeevan Sarnobat and Prabha Sarnobat. She comes from a joint family consisting of her grandmother, uncles, and aunts residing in Kolhapur.

Rahi picked up an interest in shooting when she was in school. She was introduced to the sport during National Cadet Corps training where she used firearms. It was her father, Jeevan, who asked her to join NCC so that she would learn discipline by herself. Rahi began to develop and manifest natural skills in using firearms while she was young. Later, she took the sport seriously after she was consistently hitting the target during her training at NCC. She was one of the best shooters in the camp.

Rahi took forward her interest in shooting and started training seriously. In the initial years of her training, she practiced in her hometown in Kolhapur where there wasn’t a proper infrastructure for shooting. She later moved to Mumbai to focus on her shooting. She was initially trained under coach Ajit Patil in Kolhapur and after moving to Mumbai she was guided by Ms. Sheela Kanungo.

She completed her schooling at Usharaje High School and graduated from Vivekanand College, both in Kolhapur. Tejaswini Sawant, Commonwealth Games Gold Medalist, is her inspiration after she learned her success on the International stage. She currently trains at Balewadi Shooting Range in Pune.

Rahi Sarnobat Biography

After receiving initial training from the coach Ajit Patil, she took part in school shooting competitions and did pretty well.

Under the tutelage of Sheela Kanungo, she saw the rise in her shooting career. She had competed and won medals in Maharashtra State Shooting Championship and Junior nationals before she paved her way into the senior national team. In 2015, Rahi met with an accident and injured her elbow which forcefully prevented her from competing in major tournaments for the next two years.

In 2018, Rahi Sarnobat was crowned as National Champion in a 25m air pistol event at the National Shooting Championship in Gurgaon. She retained the crown the following year at Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh.

In January 2021, Rahi won the 25m air pistol event at the national selection trials at Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range in New Delhi.

Rahi Sarnobat Achievements

Rahi Sarnobat made her international debut for India at the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games where she won her first international Gold medal in the 25m air pistol event held in New Delhi. In 2010, she won a Silver and a Gold in 25m air pistol and 25m air pistol pairs at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.

In 2011, Rahi made her ISSF World Cup in the USA and won a Bronze medal in a 25m air pistol event. She broke into the limelight at the 2013 ISSF World Cup in South Korea when she became the first Indian shooter to win a Gold medal in the World Cup. In 2014, She won a Gold medal in a 25m air pistol event at the Commonwealth Games at Glasgow in Scotland. Later that year, she won a Bronze medal at the 2014 Asain Games at Incheon in South Korea.

In 2015, Rahi Sarnobat was conferred with Arjuna Award by the Government of India.

In 2018, Rahi again caught the limelight when she became the first Indian woman shooter to win Asian Games Gold medal after she achieved the feat in a 25m air pistol event at the Asian Games at Jakarta in Indonesia. A year later, she won 2 Gold medals at the ISSF World Cup (each in Munich and Germany) in a 25m air pistol event. With her Gold medal at the Munich World Cup, she had secured her Olympics berth at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.