Anish Bhanwala became India's youngest medallist at the Commonwealth Games on Friday after winning gold in men's 25m rapid fire pistol shooting. Meet the teenagers who have won unexpected medals at Gold Coast 2018.
Commonwealth Games: Schedule | Results | Medals tally | Full coverage | Live streaming & highlights
Anish Bhanwala
[15, gold - men's 25m rapid fire pistol shooting]
On the eve of his Class X Board exams, while his classmates were making last-minute preparations, Anish Bhanwala was returning from the ISSF World Cup in Guadalajara in March, having just narrowly missed out on qualifying for the 25m rapid fire pistol final. Not long after his exams, 15-year-old Anish, who had started in sport hoping to compete in modern pentathlon, was winning gold in the same event at the Junior World Cup in Sydney. A little over a fortnight after that win, Anish made history with his gold in Gold Coast.
Manu Bhaker
[15, gold - men's 25m rapid fire pistol shooting]
India owe their great start to their shooting campaign in Gold Coast in large part to Manu Bhaker, the teenager from Haryana, who set a Games record both in the qualification round and the final of the women's 10m air pistol, beating her senior compatriot Heena Sidhu to top place on the podium in the process.
It should have come as no surprise that Manu -- who also dabbled in karate, table tennis, cricket, kabaddi and martial arts as a child -- was to prove the catalyst for the Indian shooting success in Gold Coast. Having started pursuing shooting seriously only in 2016, she had beaten Sidhu to the senior national crown in the 10m air pistol event last year. She won half of India's four golds at the World Cup earlier this year in Guadalajara, the same tournament where Anish was competing, as India topped the medals tally at the end of the World Cup. Following her CWG gold, she showed both her innocence as well as irreverent self-belief in this reply to a congratulatory tweet from the Indian prime minister.
I wish to see you in Goria when I return home in Goria on 16 April
- Manu Bhaker (@realmanubhaker) 8 April 2018
Mehuli Ghosh
[17, silver - women's 10m air rifle shooting]
One of Indian shooting's rising stars, Mehuli has had a meteoric rise over the last couple of years under the tutelage of former Olympic shooting finalist Joydeep Karmakar. Her improvement was evident in the final of the 10m air rifle event in Gold Coast, where she was the only competitor to register a perfect shot of 10.9, in a field that comprised her senior colleague Apurvi Chandela, who won bronze.
But her relative inexperience at this level showed when she appeared to get carried away in the excitement of having pulled off a bullseye during the shoot-off for the gold with Martina Veloso of Singapore, a distraction that made her settle for silver with a score of 9.9.
Deepak Lather
[18, bronze - men's 69kg weightlifting]
Returning to Gold Coast after having picked a bronze at the same venue in the Commonwealth Championships, Deepak's snatch lift of 136kg was bettered or equalled only by two lifters, but it seemed a medal could be out of his reach when he only made two successful attempts in the clean and jerk.
But mistakes from Malaysia's Muhammad Erry Hidayat and Samoan Vaipova Ioane left Lather as the third-best in his category, a lucky break for the young Army man from Haryana, whose natural strength and ability owe much to his younger days helping his father out in their farm.
Divya Kakran
[19, bronze - women's 68kg wrestling]
Divya carried the weight of high expectations into a small but competitive field in her maiden appearance at the Commonwealth Games, especially on the back of a good showing at both the senior nationals and the Asian Championships over the past year.
Her first bout was a sign of things to come, as she had to dig deep against Cameroon's Gaelle Alakame Anzong, before winning 10-8. Defeats against to Canada's Danielle Lappage and eventual champion Blessing Oborududu of Nigeria set her up for a bronze medal match against Sherin Sultana of Bangladesh. She won it in emphatic fashion -- inside 36 seconds -- with Sultana looking relieved when the referee decided that both her shoulders had been pinned to the mat.