'I couldn't even lift pistol': Sarabjot Singh Overcame Severe Pain On His Path to Olympic Success

An athlete's journey is not without its share of injury travails and there was a phase in Paris Olympic medallist Sarabjot Singh's career when he was not able to lift his pistol even once, let alone repeat the exercise 60 times in competition.

Careful planning and rehabilitation, however, saw him emerge from the career-threatening injury, which occurred in March last year, to become the joint bronze-medallist with Manu Bhaker in mixed team 10m air pistol event at the quadrennial showpiece.

As he touched down to a rapturous welcome in Delhi on Thursday afternoon, he seemed to have found a new motivation to aim higher, but in between the 22-year-old and his coach Abhishek Rana gave a glimpse of the phase when he was miles away from clinching even an Olympic quota place, let alone appear in the national trials and finally shoot down the mixed team bronze along with Manu in Paris.

"I am happy that the days of uncertainty are behind me. Just after the Bhopal World Cup in March last year, I developed a serious shoulder problem in my shooting arm, where I could not lift my arm to take even a single shot, leave aside a 60-shot qualification," said Sarabjot in an interaction with PTI on the sidelines of a function to felicitate him by Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.

"There was a phase when after five shots I used to sit down for a while with an ice-pack to relieve the pain and stiffness. Later it became so intense that I could not even lift the pistol to the height of the target," he added.

Sarabjot developed an impingement injury due to his shoulder blade rubbing against his collarbone, causing extreme discomfort and pain.

A shoulder impingement is caused by the constant rubbing of the bones, resulting in swelling, which causes pain and irritation. Several pistol shooters suffer from the impingement syndrome.

"I could not compete in the World University Games, left the Olympic Games camp in Chateauroux and I had to take heavy doses of steroids before the Asian Games to relieve the pain as PRP (platelet-rich plasma therapy) would have taken a lot more time," said Sarabjot.

PRP is a non-invasive medical procedure that makes use of a patient's blood to encourage the repair and regeneration of injured tissue.

"I won two medals at the Hangzhou Asian Games -- men's team gold and mixed team silver. Then I won the Olympic Games quota at the Asian Championships in Changwon, South Korea.

"Gradually due to regular physiotherapy, the pain started subsiding and I could get back to my normal shooting routine," he said, adding he didn't go to Paris with any expectations but with loads of "motivation and dedication".

"It (injury) happened over a period of time as we do only exercises specific to holding the pistol steady, which weakens the other muscles. But the symptoms aggravated all of a sudden," said Sarabjot, who had missed an individual bronze at the Games and finished fourth.

Shedding light on the injury his coach Abhishek Rana, who has been with Sarabjot since 2016, said, at one point in time, there was a feeling of the Olympic dream going up in smoke.

"You prepare a shooter with so much dedication and then this injury happens. You are helpless and don't know what to do. Sarabjot was advised complete rest for his shoulder for three months," said Rana.

"That was the time we started focusing on his mental training. Those three months were completely dedicated to that. And after that, gradually, he started getting back to training.

"Five shots and after that a long break, then 10 shots followed by another break and so on, to bring him up to speed," said Rana, who had accompanied Sarabjot to Paris.

The shooter from a village in Ambala added that he could have aimed for a silver and possibly a gold medal in the mixed team air pistol but he was "completely clueless how he made those poor shots".

"I will work on the deficiencies next time and not repeat the same mistakes again." Sarabjot added that the day he missed the men's 10m air pistol medal, he became more determined to give it his best shot in mixed team.

With just a day in between to turn around things he put in several hours on dry holding the pistol for more stability of the arm.

"After I completed my 10m air pistol match in the morning, I returned to the venue again in the evening to do dry holding for 3-4 hours. The inspiration was there that after losing one medal I won't let the second one too slip by," he added.