Pistol Shooter Palak Gulia Bags 20th Paris Olympic Quota Place For India

Palak’s father Joginder Singh Gulia runs a construction business in Faridabad. He took his young daughter to Rakesh’s academy in Faridabad and Ballabgarh to train for pistol shooting. The family, which has roots in Nimana village in Jhajjar district, would shift to Gurgaon and later Faridabad to support Palak’s dream of being a shooter.

“She had not seen shooting or knew about the different events prior to joining the academy. But once the coach chose pistol events for her, her focus was on that particular event. It took a lot of time to travel to the academy, so she would take her books along with her or study till late at night to strike a balance,” Joginder remembers.

Two years after she started, Palak would finish sixth in the 10m air pistol event at the 2021 national shooting championships before becoming the champion at the ISSF Junior Cup the following year. The same year, she won the bronze medal in the ISSF World Cup in Changwon, Korea.