Rudrankksh Patil wins Asian Games men's 10m air rifle bronze after disrupted trip to Japan

Rudrankksh Patil won bronze in the men’s 10m air rifle at the Asian Games in Japan on Monday after a travel and accommodation ordeal that began with an emergency landing and included multiple flights and a hotel mix-up. Patil spoke to select media after his medal finish about the problems the Indian shooting contingent faced en route from Bhopal to the competition.

The team departed from Bhopal and were travelling to Delhi when their flight made an emergency landing in Jaipur, after which the shooters took a car for six hours to reach Delhi. The following day they flew to Hong Kong, where they had a six or seven-hour halt before taking another five-hour flight to Japan. On arrival in Japan the clearance process was quick but the contingent then waited for transport.

“After reaching here, within five minutes everything was cleared. We went to the welcoming centre. It took us three hours to wait for the bus there,” Patil said, describing a delay that meant they left for their hotel around 2 or 3 a.m. and reached at around 3:30 or 4. Once at the hotel the team discovered the accommodation booked for them was not the hotel they expected and “we only had a couple of rooms there,” Patil said.

Patil explained the organisers used a system where one hotel functioned as the main hotel with others connected to it and rooms were allocated based on availability, but “the system did not work as expected with the reservations.” “It was quite disappointing to know that,” he said.

The squad were moved to a hotel beside the main one, where rooms were small and, Patil said, “We cannot open our suitcases over here.” Coaches decided the rooms were too small for double occupancy and gave each shooter a room of their own; Patil added: “That made us much more comfortable. The room is small, but it’s comfortable also. It’s cosy also. I love now, I love this room now, even though it is small.”

Transport to venues proved slow despite buses arriving on time, with Patil saying: “The buses are coming on time but taking two hours to reach rather than the 70 minutes which they had promised, sometimes two-and-a-half hours to reach.” More buses were provided the next day for returns, but organisers were uncertain about onward journeys because they did not know how many athletes would be travelling and each bus had a capacity of 50. The Indian government then provided private cars for the rifle, pistol and shotgun teams so athletes with competitions could use them to reach venues on time; “Even though the things are not that well, but again, I like how it was promptly handled,” Patil said.

Patil also commented on the organisers’ approach to food and sustainability, noting athletes were asked whether they would have lunch, dinner or breakfast and meals were prepared accordingly and packed meals were provided at venues instead of large buffets to reduce wastage. “I think it is managed well in their own way,” he said, adding that the experience differed from previous Asian Games: “There is no village, there is no 24-hour food system, there are no buildings with a lot of flags, and you know how grand usually an Asian Games is.”

By the time he reached the shooting range Patil had already endured an emergency landing, multiple flights, a late-night wait and accommodation complications, yet he produced a strong start in the 10m air rifle final and briefly challenged China’s Lihao Sheng for gold. A 9.7 in the latter stages saw him slip to third, while teenager Himanshu Dhillon moved into second and eventually won silver; Patil finished with bronze and had earlier in the day won a team silver alongside Dhillon and Parth Mane.

The bronze provided a fitting endpoint to a journey that had begun with an emergency landing in Jaipur and taken the Indian shooter through multiple travel and accommodation setbacks before he finally reached the range.