Anjali Bhagwat is a professional Indian shooter. She became the World Number One in 10m Air Rifle in 2002. She also won her first World Cup Final in Milan, in 2003, with a score of 399/400.
Anjali won the ISSF Champion of Champions award and is the only Indian to win the ISSF Champions’ Trophy in Air Rifle Men & Women mixed event at Munich in 2002. She has represented India in three consecutive Olympics, and was a finalist in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, again a first for any Indian women shooter. She has won 12 gold and 4 silver medals in the Commonwealth Games. She is a Commonwealth record holder in 10m Air Rifle and Sports Rifle 3P. In the 2003 Afro-Asian Games, Bhagwat created history by becoming the first Indian woman shooter to get gold and a silver medal in the Sports 3P and Air Rifle events respectively.
To date, she has won 31 Gold, 23 Silver and 7 Bronze medals. She has set 13 new records in International competitions and has won 55 Gold, 35 Silver and 16 Bronze medals, with 8 new records in national competitions in India.Sanjay Chakravarthy was her first coach. She credits him for her strong fundamentals and basics; instilled over a period of over 5 years. She turned pro when she first participated in the National Championships in 1988. She won Silver for her state and continues to play for the Maharashtra team. Her tally of 55 Gold, 35 Silver and 16 Bronze medals in domestic Competitions is unbeaten.
She participated in her first international event in 1995, in the SAF games. Her first international Gold winning performance was in the Commonwealth Championship in Auckland in 1999, where she won 3 Gold medals and a Silver medal in Air Rifle, 3P individual and the team event. She is the only woman to have won the World Cup for India. She considers her rival Galkina Lioubov (Russia) as an idol competitor.
In December 1999, she started training under Laszlo Szucsak, the then coach for the Indian Shooting Team. Bhagwat had personally approached Laszlo after watching his work with the Malaysian Shooting squad. The Hungarian remained with the team for a year during which Bhagwat earned a wild card entry in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where she went on to become one of the finalists. From 2001 to 2004, Bhagwat trained without a coach, and still managed to become World Number One in 2002.
During the year 2006, Laszlo re-joined the national shooting squad as the team Coach, and Bhagwat trained with him till 2008. In the year 2008, Stanislav Lapidus was appointed the coach by the Indian National Army for the national squad. Many stalwarts of the sport of shooting often rate World Championships higher than the Olympics. Bhagwat has ranked her victory as the Champions of Champions in 2002 as the best moment in her career. She still remains the only Indian to have ever won the title.
AWARDS
Rajiv Gandhi Khel-Ratna (2003)
Arjuna Award (2000)
- 1992:Shree Shiv Chattrapati Award
- 1993:Maharashtra Gaurav Puraskar
- 1993:Vasantrav Naik Pratishthan Puraskar
- 2002:Indo-American Society Young Achiever award
- 2003:Times Group Maharashtra Shaan
- 2003:Hero Indian Sports Award -Best sportswoman
- 2003:HISA Sports Woman of the year
- 2003:HISA Shooter of the year
- 2004:HISA Shooter of the year
- 2005:GR8 women achievers award
- 2005:Teacher’s achievement award
- 2006:F I E Foundation National award