Every sport comes with a different set of challenges and rewards. Along with the challenges you face during the process of becoming a renowned sports person you need motivation. Here comes money in the picture especially if you are living in a country like India. A country where the government supports only a handful of sports. You can name them and rest all are either neglected or do not have a good support system. Along with the government, the general public is also responsible for this situation because most want to watch cricket and very less focus on sports like kabaddi or chess until someone comes with a medal. Thankfully, in shooting there is a bit of support available from the government since people started bringing home medals from Olympics or World cup matches. In this article we will look at the cash prize for winning medals in pistol shooting. How much money shooters make and is there a career.
How much money shooters make?
Before you dive into the details, you should know that shooting is an expensive sport. The cost also depends on whether you are a Pistol shooter or Rifle shooter. We also calculated the cost of becoming a shooter until you participate in national games. Anyways, let us not distract from the topic, the kind of money shooters make depends on what match they have won. For example, if you are a professional pistol shooter and do not win medals, there are zero rewards. There is nothing called aspiring shooters. You keep spending money on training, pellets, practice sessions and shooting range fees. But if you win (say Olympics) you get a lot of cash rewards. If you win a gold medal in national games, you go for international trials. If you are selected and government officials see potential in you, they start giving you stipend. Some state governments like Madhya Pradesh offer you government jobs under sports quota after winning medals in World Cup or Olympic games. That is when you start making money. First of all, you get a one time cash prize for winning medals in pistol shooting or rifle shooting. Then you keep getting the salary.
Cash Prize for Winning Medals in Pistol Shooting
On March 11, 2020, National Rifle Association of India made an announcement about the cash prize in one of their circulars. Since then the prize money has increased but the official number is not available on the website.
Check out the table below for Money paid to shooter for winning medals
For more details check the Circular on NRAI’s official website
Cash Prize for winning Gold Medal in National Shooting Championship
As per IndiaShooting which is the official handle of National Rifle Association of India, under Sports For All Sponsorship Program they offer a cash prize of Rs 1 lacs of cash prize for shooters winning Gold medal in National Shooting Championship. For a Silver medal you get 75,000 and for Bronze you get 50,000. The amount may change because it is based on the 2024 announcement.
However, this also depends on the state or association you represent. For example, Haryana offers the maximum cash prize for winning medals and some states do not even consider it. In other sports the situation is even worse. An article published on scroll website talks about this in detail. Since we are talking about Shooting, the situation is a little better in comparison with other sports.