From Financial Struggles to Asian Games Silver, Sonam Maskar Now Chases Olympic Quota

Asian Games silver medallist Sonam Maskar has set her sights on securing an Olympic quota at next month’s ISSF World Championship in Doha, where she hopes to take an important step towards her dream of competing at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

The World Championship, scheduled from November 1 to 14, will offer 36 quota places for the 2028 Olympics.

“We have the World Championships in a month’s time where quotas are available. I will try my best to earn an Olympics quota from there and in 2028 LA Games win the gold medal,” Maskar told PTI Videos during a Western Railway media interaction.

Maskar won the women’s 10m air rifle team silver at the Asian Games in Japan alongside Elavenil Valarivan and Vidarsa Vinod. She said the hard work she put in despite a difficult selection process eventually paid off.

“There were complications policy-wise for the selections and that was tough. But whatever hard work I put in, it helped,” she said.

Maskar’s journey has also been marked by financial struggles. She began shooting in 2019 but was forced to stop training for nearly a year during the COVID-19 pandemic because of financial difficulties.

“Shooting is one sport where you need a lot of finances because certain things are expensive,” she said, crediting her father for helping her continue her career.

She eventually returned to competition, made the junior team and broke into the senior squad, where she has been a regular for the past three years.

Her Western Railway colleague Raj Rani, meanwhile, celebrated her long-awaited Asian Games kabaddi gold, saying patience, hard work and her father’s support helped her finally earn her chance on the international stage.