Gagan Narang

New Delhi: India’s only individual gold medal at the Olympics has come in shooting but it is no secret that the sport has a very small fan following in the country.

Rifle shooter Gagan Narang, however, feels the game has the potential to both attract a television audience and pack a stadium, if presented the way it is done in Germany and other countries.

Speaking to The Telegraph on Tuesday, Narang, who recently broke two world records during his gold medal-winning effort at the World Cup in Bangkok, said that a club competition on the lines of the German league can make shooting popular.

“The competition in the German league is very intense,” Narang said. “It is called the Bundesliga (like the football league) and top players from all over the world participate. It has a tremendous fan following. A club-based shooting league can survive in India if the format is changed and made more television friendly.

“In India we do not have the culture of going to the ground regularly to catch on sporting action. Instead people love to watch matches on TV. Shooting can become popular if it receives the backing of the TV channels. Shooting can surely become hot property if it is packaged properly,” Narang said.

The Hyderabad-based shooter put aside a poor outing at the Beijing Olympics with a perfect 600 and a world record total of 703.5 in Bangkok. He said he would now begin preparations to win a gold at the next Olympics (London, 2012).

“But then, 2009 will be very important from the training point of view as I prepare for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. I shall have four World Cups to shoot and my aim will be to bag medals in all of them,” said the 25-year-old.

“I am confident of doing well in the future. Our Hungarian coach Laszlo Scuszak has been monitoring my training programme ever since the Commonwealth Games in 2005. He persuaded me to take up three-position and prone in addition to 10m air rifle. Under him, we will improve further.”

Narang is sad that despite his international success over the last few years, he doesn’t get to endorse products like cricketers do.

“Thankfully, I have no sponsorship problem at the moment,” he said. “All my shooting needs are taken care by the Olympic Gold Quest Foundation run by Prakash Padukone and Geet Sethi.

“What I lack is endorsements. I feel people find it much easier to relate with cricketers though shooters are doing extremely well in the international arena. After all, cricket is the most popular game and marketed very well,” he said.

Narang was confident that the day was not far off when people would recognise his hard work. “It takes sportspersons from other disciplines a little more time to become a star. It even took Vishwanathan Anand several years to become a star.”