‘I won’t quit until I win’: Mairaj Ahmad Khan returns to his fourth Asian Games with the same Olympic dream he had 20 years ago

Asian Games: Mairaj Ahmed Khan As Mairaj Ahmad Khan prepares for his fourth Asian Games, the medal that occupies most of his thoughts is not the one on offer in Japan.It is one that has remained out of reach for over two decades.“Olympic gold, which I don’t have yet. That’s the fight. I won’t stop until I win. My first dream was to become an Olympian. That dream came true. Now the dream is to become an Olympic champion.”At 50, Mairaj has already rewritten parts of Indian skeet history. He became the first Indian skeet shooter to qualify for the Olympics, later became the first Indian to win gold in the men’s skeet world cup, and represented the country in two Olympics.Mairaj’s first Asian Games was held in Doha in 2006 and after missing out on selection for Jakarta 2018 and Hangzhou 2022, he now returns to the Indian team almost two decades after his Asian Games debut. Men’s skeet qualifying begins on September 21, with the final scheduled for September 23.Out of reach, he has little interest in transforming himself into something greater than himself.“Miraj Ahmed Khan is a very normal person. I live my life as a normal person. If I’m not shooting, I’m not thinking about shooting. I’m not always talking about shooting. I’m still working to tell everyone that Miraj Ahmed Khan is alive and kicking.”

Before skeet, there was cricket

Long before skeet shooting became his calling, his attention was drawn to cricket. “Mera pehla pyaar cricket tha. Main cricket hi khelta tha. Shooting toh ghar mein thi kyunki papa shoot karte the, lekin main cricket ke peeche tha (My first love was cricket. That’s all I played. It was always shooting at home because my father was a shooter, but my heart was cricket).Mairaj grew up in a zamindari family where firearms were known. His father, the late Ilyas Ahmed Khan, competed in trap shooting and as a youngster, Mairaj also tried his hand at air rifle and .22 shotgun competitions. He won ₹30 in prize money at the three-position district competition in Bulandshahr.“I bought a cricket bat with that money,” he said with a laugh.There were afternoons spent on the cricket pitches, also playing alongside a young Virender Sehwag and, like many teenagers, the belief that the game would continue to shape his future. Shooting remained close, but not as a career.“Us wakt shooting ko career ki tarah koi dekhta bhi nahi tha. Main bhi nahi dekhta tha (Back then nobody looked at shooting as a career. Neither did I).”Competitive shooting came later for Mairaj than it does for most elite athletes today. While he entered the sport in 1998, he made his international debut in 2003. By then, many of the shooters he would eventually compete with had already spent years on international ranges.But that never bothered him. “No one told me that it was too late. Because at that time shooting was not very popular, especially shotguns. It was an expensive sport. Only rich people – maharajas and businessmen – shot.”Sports required much more than talent. Ammunition, travel and equipment all came at a price. Staying in it required help.“I was lucky. At that time I found Mr. Naveen Jindal. He got me a sponsorship. And if you see, Jindal is still on my jacket. He found me and nudged me and said, ‘You can do it’.”

‘Empty Your Cup’

This support kept him in the sport. The belief that he could stand alongside the best in the world came later; in 2013 when Atlanta Olympic champion Ennio Falco took over as India’s skeet coach.“Before that, we were just shooting. The idea was not a winning mentality. The idea was just to go, participate and come back. To be a tourist. Okay, we go to Germany, we go to Italy, we go to South America, the USA. Like tourists, we traveled at the expense of the government.”By the time Olympic champion Falco joined, Mairaj had already spent ten years on the international circuit. Falco didn’t ask the shooters to change clothes overnight. First, he wanted them to change the way they thought about competition.“You must empty your cup.Mairaj was confused at first. “I didn’t get it at the time. But after a few months I understood what he was trying to tell me – that I had to empty my cup and refill it.”Two years later, he secured India’s first Olympic quota in men’s skeet. “I made it to the Olympics in 2015. I won a quota place. We basically set the outcome from that practice.”

A memory of Rio

Rio 2016 followed and is still remembered finish by finish. “I was very relaxed in Rio. If you ask me honestly, and I’m telling you now, it’s been 10 years, I still remember the competition like it was just yesterday.”“Whenever I close my eyes, I see myself on that range. I can still feel the station. I’ll tell you where the low house is and what color the low house is. His memory is still like yesterday.”Mairaj finished ninth in the shootout, one place outside of the final. His near miss in Rio also came against the backdrop of a discipline where India has rarely seen an individual success at the Asian Games. Before Nagoya, only two Indians have reached the podium in skeet – Karni Singh, who won bronze in Tehran in 1974, and Anant Jeet Singh Naruka, who won silver in Hangzhou in 2023.“Finally, I realized that the Olympics are just a competition. We basically see the competition differently. But it’s the same 125-target competition.”For Mairaj, nothing should change just because the Olympic rings are within reach.“If you want to see this competition as a normal competition, like a 125-goal selection trial or the World Cup, the Asian Championship or the Asian Games, it has to be. It’s not like the Olympics.”He laughed as he listed the promises athletes make to themselves before games.“Now I have to work. I have to run. I have to eat only diet food. I have to lose 20 pounds from my body… No, no, no.”“The weapon should be the same. The ammunition is the same. You work the same way. The same way you prepare for the selection. Because you also prepare well for the selection. If you are not selected in the Indian team, how do you want to get a quota place for the country?”“It should be in the same flow from the first day you win the quota place until the match. In the same flow.”

Years that stood still

Tokyo arrived under very different circumstances. As Mairaj secured another Olympic quota in Doha, he felt he was shooting as well as ever.“I was in very good form when I got the quota place in Doha. And then we had the national championship here in Delhi. I scored 125 out of 125. I was peaking at the right time.”Then the pandemic pushed the Olympics back a year. “Covid came. And the Olympics moved to another year, in 2021. You can’t wear your top for two years.”Ranges closed. “No shooting. All ranges closed. You were at home. No physical fitness. Nothing.”A few months before the games, his father died. “For me, I lost my father in April before the Olympics. So it’s another setback for me.”“For everyone, not just me, the whole world was suffering from the COVID virus. Everyone was losing someone – family, relationships.”“We were in Italy. It was like a zombie country. We trained on the range by ourselves. Because when you shoot alone, it’s not the feeling. You need someone to shoot with you. How are you going to compete when you go there and there are six shooters on the team and you train all by yourself?”And this interruption lasted far beyond Tokyo and for Mairaj. “That was very difficult for me and I didn’t overcome it and I didn’t get a place in the Paris quota. The journey was very, very difficult.”“From 2020… until now, I’ve been struggling. Now I started peaking, slowly, slowly. I won a competition, a small competition. I won a selection. I won a medal at the national championship.”“Now I’ve changed my weapon. I’ve changed my technique to catch something. But it takes time. In skeet, if you change one bit, you go for 10 bits.”

A comeback that began in Cairo

But even amid his struggles, there was a glimmer of hope in the form of gold from the 2022 World Championships in Cairo, Egypt.The gold was India’s first individual gold at the World Cup in men’s skeet, a discipline where the country has struggled for years to establish itself internationally, but for Miraj it was not the biggest medal of his career; rather, she was the one who convinced him that he still belonged.“If I hadn’t won the World Cup, it would have been a different Mairaj. The gold medal from the World Cup gave me another boost.”Cairo was not an isolated success. Over two decades on the international circuit, Mairaj has built one of the most consistent records by an Indian shotgun shooter. His resume includes three World Championship gold medals – team gold in New Delhi (2021), individual gold in Changwon (2022) and mixed team gold in Cairo (2023) – in addition to an individual silver at the World Championships in Rio de Janeiro (2016).He won six medals at the Asian Championships, including a team gold at Kuala Lumpur 2011 and an individual silver at Doha 2019. This was followed by medals at the Commonwealth and South Asian Championships as Indian shotgun shooting gradually found its place on the international stage.While the World Cup gold changed Mairaj’s view of himself as an athlete, it did not change his view of the sport.

One goal at a time

“The most important thing about skeet is that it’s an outdoor sport. Sometimes it’s cold, sometimes it’s windy, sometimes it’s raining, sometimes there’s a tree in the background, sometimes there’s a mountain. So the visibility changes every time. It’s difficult for you to catch the target.”“Then there’s your gear. Your gun, stock, ammo, what kind of glasses you wear, amplify the light? All these things are like columns of fire.”There is no single right way to shoot. “There are many coaches in the world. They teach different techniques. You can break the target with three or four techniques. But for me this technique is the easiest. You can easily break the target with this.”According to him, victory is usually decided somewhere between the body and the mind. “It’s a combination of mental and physical. Some shooters are mentally very strong but not very physically fit. Some are physically very fit but don’t have a winning mentality. I think it’s balanced.”And for Mairaj, the pressure never goes away. “Nervousness is part of being human. You will feel the pressure. But how to handle it in that moment – that’s the experience.”“Vincent Hancock also misses targets. But the difference between the loser and the winner is that the winner doesn’t hit fewer targets. The loser misses more targets. Both miss targets.”“If you miss one or two targets, don’t underestimate yourself. You might miss the first round. But the next four rounds you shoot 100 and make 123. You’re in the finals. So never give up. There’s no such word in my diary. Never give up. I’m 50 years old and I’m still working the same way. I’m not giving up. I’m not giving up.”And the process continues as Mairaj approaches another major championship. “That’s simple logic. One target at a time. You have five rounds. Round by round. After five rounds we’ll see the result. If it’s in the final, we’ll run the final. If not, we’ll sit out and see.”In a few hours, Mairaj Ahmad Khan will return to the skeet range for his fourth Asian Games, but beyond Nagoya, the pursuit remains the same: the Olympic gold that has occupied his thoughts for more than two decades.“We have one Olympic shooting champion. Abhinav Bindra. What’s wrong with two?”