Young lad keeps his focus straight on shooting target

​Tirupati: A senior Intermediate student Salam Venkat Amaresh aims his rifle at the target with a specific goal and deep determination. Hailing from Chittoor district, he has been representing Tirupati in the ‘Rifle Shooting’ tournaments winning laurels everywhere and now qualified for Indian Shooting team trials, which will be held at New Delhi from January 10. If he continues his winning streak at these trials and stand among the top 10 he will get the chance of becoming a member of Indian Shooting team.

His father SK Hari Kumar and mother J Ramadevi are both teachers who found his interest in sports while he was in primary school itself when they worked in Kuppam. His father joined him to learn swimming. Keeping in mind their son’s future in sports activities, they preferred to relocate at Tirupati and got transferred. Soon, Hari Kumar joined his son in Gymnastics and stick fight. He won silver at Nationals in Stick Fight held at Jharkand. 

He said that, the management of Sri Vidyanikethan International School has encouraged Amaresh well. It was in 2015 his sporting career turned towards rifle shooting when a summer training camp was held at Sri Srinivasa Sports Complex in Tirupati in which he developed passion and determined to continue in that sport. The summer coaching camp was continued in 2016 also after which he participated in a tournament held in Guntur and won silver medal in 10 meter open site category.

This motivated both Amaresh and his parents which made him to think about Peep sight rifle which is commonly used by all shooters. He went to Guntur for training in using this rifle at The Indian Academy of Shooting Sports in Guntur founded by a retired army officer Subramaneswara Rao. Which he has been continuing even today. This training helped him in achieving his targets and he secured several medals at various types of tournaments. In October 2018, he performed at All India Inter Schools Championship held in Gujarat in which 24 states have participated and won Gold medal by scoring 391 out of 400 points. 

In the same month, he participated in AP CM Cup tournament held in Proddutur conducted by School Games Federation of India (SGFI) and secured Gold medal thereby qualified for Nationals to be held at Indore in Madhya Pradesh in December. Amaresh participated in another tournament at Tiruvananthapuram on November 22 organised by National Rifle Association of India (NRAI). By scoring 607.3 points there, he qualified both for youth and junior categories in the trials list for Indian Shooting team and determined to perform well there and find a berth in Indian Shooting team.

Apart from Shooting, he has been concentrating on his education as well. Speaking to The Hans India Amaresh said, “To lay more focus on sports I opted for CEC group in Intermediate at Emeralds Junior College in Tirupati. I frequently visit Guntur for my training classes. My parents have bought Peep Sight Air Rifle which was made in Germany by spending Rs.2.5 lakhs which will help me in my practice. My objective is to excel in all tournaments and securing a medal in Olympics for India”.