By Anjali Nauriyal
One of India’s ace marksmen, Jaspal Rana earned for his country an impressive haul of gold, silver and bronze medals and had become a sports icon at a considerably young age. Happily he was still going strong as a coach. The ace shooter was easily one of the best sportspersons that Uttarakhand has produced. Each year he won more and more laurels for his country, even though personally he always felt his best was yet to come. Jaspal showed his marksmanship in centre-fire pistol and rapid fire pistol firing and most of the gold medals that he won had been notched up with impressive margins. Rana had given tough fights to his compatriots Samaresh Jung and Ronak Pandit.
Rana loved to spend most of his non-playing time in Doon, either plunging into hectic electioneering schedules for his father, former Uttarakhand Sports Minister Narayan Singh Rana during election time, or looking after the day to day running of his Shooting Academy.
The Academy, situated in 25 acres of salubrious land, has so far trained hundreds of youth. Rana personally trained his students and wanted to give them the facilities and sporting conditions that he himself did not receive. The Academy has been holding the State Championship and the North Zone Championship each year and is proud to enlist over 1000 plus entries.
Jaspal practiced daily. He changed his weapon every one year or so. Technology, he said, was changing fast and he kept pace with it. He believed that any good shooter had to have a brain of a mechanic and must know his weapon in and out.
Jaspal’s younger sibling Sushma Rana too blazed away to the top spot in the 25m sport pistol event to begin with and contributed to the sport considerably.
In Rana’s demise a golden period of the sporting history of Uttarakhand has attained closure.
