35 and still young: Trap shooter Kynan Chenai refuses to slow down

Alexander Zverev was in the US Open final, but he didn’t know it for a few seconds.

The German was so engrossed in the match against Ben Shelton, so deep in the process of winning the final point, that the result didn’t quite register. It was a moment that went viral. Kynan Chenai remembers it for a different reason.

For trap shooters, this is where you want to be.

“You’re just numb. You’re just going through your process, going through what you have to do,” Chenai tells IndiaToday.in.

When shooting, he explains, the hardest moments are when the mental game begins. One goal. One chance. There is no room for the mind to wander.

“When that one goal comes, you have to be so mentally strong that you don’t feel anything.

Chenai will be looking for that feeling when they come to Japan for the Asian Games.

At 35, he is the oldest member of the Indian men’s trap team. Ahvar Rizvi is 26. Shapath Bharadwaj is 23. The previous Asian Games team included Zoravar Singh Sandhu, who will be 46 in 2023, and Prithviraj Tondaiman, who will be 36.

Chenai moved into the older group almost unnoticed. He doesn’t particularly like the idea.

“I like to be one of the young ones in the head with them,” he says. “So I try to keep up with them as much as I can and try to beat them most of the time.

Younger shooters, he says, make sure he can’t take anything for granted.

“They’re good so they keep me on my toes too.

Then he laughs.

“This new generation is coming to the shooting team. I say ‘new generation’ but I’m not that old yet!”

Chenai will compete in the men’s individual trap, men’s team competition and mixed team competition in Japan. He and Neeru Dhanda form the Indian mixed trap while Ahvar and Shapath join him in the men’s team. Kynan Chenai embraces experience as India’s veteran trap shooter heads to the Asian Games. (Photo: Reuters)

Men’s Trap Team will defend the title at the Asian Games. Chenai will also return as an individual bronze medalist from previous games.

His year had a series of ups and downs. He shot 119 in World Cup qualifying in Tangier and finished 13th just outside the final field. At Lonato, he finished 71st in the singles after shooting 116. He and Neeru finished 18th in the mixed team event.

There was enough competition around him to make the choice difficult. Chenai knows this as well as anyone.

“Guys like me, Prithviraj… we are the seniors now,” he says. “And if we want to make the team, we really have to shoot those big scores or you don’t make the team in India anymore.”

It’s a different Indian shotgun setup than the Chenai years ago. Scores on domestic tests have gone up, he says. Younger shooters are stepping up and giving the established names a run for their money.

“Our shotgun team is more professional, more enthusiastic and has a lot more energy,” says Chenai.

“So don’t count us out. We’ve got something up our sleeve.”

OBSESSED WITH HOU

Chenai has been shooting for 25 years. He started young and the attitude towards sports has changed a lot since then.

The younger Kynan wasn’t particularly interested in keeping his emotions in check.

“When I was much younger, I took a lot of pressure on myself and used to have a lot of aggression towards the game,” he says.

However, the love of shooting was always there.

“I love the game. I loved it then, I love it now. I’m actually obsessed with the game.”

“I find the obsession fun. I get up in the morning, go shoot and come home, hot or cold… I find it fun to have a gun in my hand and actually break targets.”

There is a difference between loving a sport and understanding it.

Chenai believes age has given him the latter.

“I’ve been shooting for 25 years. It’s changed a lot in terms of experience, it’s changed in terms of how I approach the game.”

When he was younger, sports were about something else. Now there is a bigger perspective.

“You grow up as a man, you grow up as a family man now and you tend to think about things a little differently. The importance of certain things in the game changes.”

The technical side is also changing. So does the mental side.

“One matures in skill, one matures in your technique, one matures in your mental space.”

“Most of the time we don’t have time to look back. But when you get to sit and look back, it’s very, very fun to see how you’ve changed,” he says.

ONE GOAL AT A TIME

Shotgun shooting is a brutal sport that can be explained to someone who has never watched it closely. The target is moving. A shooter doesn’t know his direction until he appears. Weather and light may change conditions. And the window for reaction is small.

Chennai has the numbers ready.

“We’re shooting a 12-gauge shotgun that’s traveling at 500 feet per second, and we’re shooting at a target that’s coming out of the machine at 100 kilometers per hour, and you have 0.6 seconds to break the target before it leaves your range.”

The direction is unknown until the destination appears.

“So the stats, the logic behind it is that you have to be very quick with your reflexes, your eyes, etc. So there’s the technique.

Then comes the mind.

“When times get tough, that’s when the mental game kicks in because at the end of the day it boils down to one goal.”

The work begins long before the competition.

During the current build-up, the Indian team spent 10 days training in Delhi. On a hot day, shooters can get to the range around 7 or 8 a.m. and stay until about 1 p.m. This is followed by rest, followed by physical work and a psychological session in the evening.

He shoots four or five days a week during heavier training periods before reducing the load closer to competition.

“You put a lot of shells in, you put a lot of brain space into your technique, and then you see what happens when test day comes.”

The coaches are also part of the mental preparation.

Chenai works with a team psychologist and has also had a mental coach, Lorenzo Beltrame, for several years. Beltrame worked with him at the 2016 Olympics.

But when Chenai is actually on the range, he puts a lot of faith in his coaches. His personal trainer is David Kosteleck, while Peter Wilson is the team trainer.

“Your coaches, your technical coach … they end up being your mental coach,” he says.

“They’re with you all the time and they tend to tell you how it is. They tell you straight up what you need to do, like, either you need to pick yourself up and go for it, or they calm you down when you need to calm down.”

Psychology is complex. The process is not. Kynan Chenai draws strength from younger teammates ahead of Asian Games challenge

“Follow this process, you will shoot each target with the best abilities and then we will see how the results fall on the cards.”

He doesn’t pretend that results don’t matter.

“Everybody wants results. Nobody says… If they tell you they don’t want results, they’re lying to you!”

He wants medals. He wants to win. But the goal in front of him is always the goal in front of him.

“As an athlete, as an athlete, you prepare to give your best in terms of who you are and go against yourself. Results will come and go. That’s part of the game.”

NEW INDIA

Chenai watched the change in Indian firing from close range. He has been part of Khelo India, NCOE and TOP Scheme. Now he watches younger athletes come through those systems and make national teams.

Chenai says the difference is visible not only in the number of athletes but also in the infrastructure around them.

“Khelo India, all the NCOEs, Khelo India, all these programs that we have in the system are nurturing such young athletes and bringing them into the national team.”

He recalls that there was a time when even getting permission to film could become a process.

“It’s very, very different now. You can actually be a professional athlete in India,” he says.

It also changed the competitive landscape in shotgun shooting. Chenai says India’s rifle and pistol program has thousands of national-level athletes to choose from, while shotgun has a much smaller pool.

But he believes the shotgun standard is rising rapidly.

“If you look at the shotgun scores, they are up significantly.

This also makes it difficult for him to choose. And maybe that’s exactly what he wants.

He goes to Japan with Ahvar and Shapath, not to teach them to shoot, but to compete with them. After 25 years of shooting, Chenai is still chasing medals and Olympic dreams. (Photo: Instagram)

“It’s nice to have young people who bring a different kind of energy.”

There is another young, successful presence in the Chennai Asian Games campaign. Neeru, a 26-year-old native of Haryana, has just won gold at the World Cup in Lonat and will partner Chenai in the mixed trap.

They have already shot together in Lonat and trained side by side for the recent 10-day camp.

“We pretty much know how they shoot each other, what to say before rounds,” says Chenai.

“We’re pretty well gelled with each other.”

The result of Lonato did not go well for them. They finished 18th. However, Neeru returned from the tournament with an individual gold medal.

Chenai saw this as fuel for the group.

“She’s just coming off the beautiful gold medal she won at the Lonato World Cup, which is very motivating for all of us.”

THE OLYMPIC DREAM

Three events await Chenai in Japan. Individual trap. Men’s team. Mixed team.

He already knows what an Asian Games medal looks like. He knows what it’s like to stand on the Olympic shooting range having competed in Rio 2016.

He doesn’t seem to know when to stop wanting another chance.

There are no short-term goals, he says.

“I only have long-term goals.

The Olympic dream still exists.

“The Olympics is something that is my dream. I mean I will never let it go. I want to go again, I want to be good there.”

After 25 years of filming, Chenai still gets up in the morning to do the thing he loves.

Next to him are now younger shooters. He wants to beat them. There are medals he has already won. He wants more. There are the Olympics that he has already experienced. He wants another.

And there is still a goal ahead of him.

“It’ll always burn, yeah. The fire will never go out.”

– The end

Issued by:

Debodinna Chakraborty

Published on:

17 Sep 2026 08:41 IST