Rubina Francis etched her name in Paralympic history on Saturday with a bronze medal in Paris. She rose on the occasion and clinched a bronze in the women’s 10m air pistol SH1 event. Para-athletes never have an easy journey, as they have to fight against all odds and show grit and resilience to reach the top, which was also the case with Rubina.
The 25-year-old, who hails from Jabalpur, was born with talipes—commonly known as club foot—which prevented her from staying steady while shooting at the target, but that didn’t stop her from becoming an inspiration. Since a young age, she had a dream of emulating her idol Gagan Nagar, Olympic silver medalist, but it was not an easy target to achieve, considering Talipes didn’t allow him to stand steady on her feet at that time.
She also struggled to shoot perfectly while sitting which turned out to another hurdle for her in the way to achieve her dream.
As a child, Rubina Francis dreamed of emulating her idol, Olympic medallist shooter Gagan Narang but winning a medal at the biggest stage was an audacious target considering that even standing steady on her feet was a huge challenge at that time.
The 25-year-old from Jabalpur was born with talipes — commonly known as club foot — and that prevented her from staying steady while shooting at the target.
To add to her woes, she wasn’t able to shoot perfectly while sitting. But her coaches came up with a solution.
“We made her stand and got special shoes for her which facilitated balance,” her coach JP Nautiyal told PTI.
On Saturday, all the hard work paid dividends as she become the country’s first female pistol shooter to win a Paralympic medal– at bronze in the women’s 10m air pistol (SH1) event.
Rubina also had a strong support system at home as her father, a garage owner and her mother, who works as a nurse, were always there to support their daughter despite the financial struggles in the household.
In 2015, Rubina found herself at the MP Shooting Academy, where, under the mentorship of Nautiyal and guidance under renowned coach Jaspal Rana’s younger brother Subhash, she flourished.
It was at the 2018 France World Cup that she started realising that to make it big, the first step is to get a Paralympic quota, and that’s where the journey of intensive training began. The hard work started paying off in 2021 when she won the silver medal at the Para World Championships at Lima (Peru) in addition to the bronze in the Para Asian Games in China.
In Paris, she scripted history by aggregating 211.1 to finish third in the eight-woman final behind and became the country’s first female pistol shooter to win a Paralympic medal.