Social media noise during the Games was scary: Sift

Mumbai: One of the things Sift Kaur Samra said she was most looking forward to at the Paris Games, apart from making her Olympic debut in the shooting ranges of Chateauroux, was roaming the streets of Paris after it with her family.
Sift, a rare easygoing personality in a sport so intense, was far from herself after things didn’t go her way in Chateauroux. She yearned for some time by herself to recoup, but didn’t want to mess up her Paris sightseeing plans.
“I thought, ‘chalo theek hai competition jaisa bhi gaya ho, par baaki wali itinerary kharab nahi honi chahiye (no matter how the competition went, the rest of the trip shouldn’t get affected)’,” Sift said, smiling.
“At that point, I did need some alone time. But because my family was there, I didn’t want to spoil their holiday because of my mood. After I came back, I finally got that time alone to think — kya hua (what happened) actually.”
What happened was that Sift, among the brighter prospects in the Indian shooting contingent at the Games, had by far one of her most under-par outings at the biggest of stages. The Asian Games individual gold medallist in the women’s 50m rifle 3 positions exited in the qualification stage finishing 31st.
It was among the more surprising Indian results, given the kind of things Sift had achieved in the months preceding it. An Asian Games individual gold with a world record score, an Asian Championships silver, the Munich World Cup bronze a month ahead of the Games — everything pointed towards a big Olympic performance.
“It was difficult, because after an experience like that… I had never thought that my competition would go so bad,” Sift said. “After a long time, I had one bad tournament. And that bad tournament came in one that was the most important. But it has made me understand what aspects I should focus on.”
Sift went into the Olympics carrying her usual free-spirited mind, not being too fussed about tinkering with her routines, which included use of social media. She, however, soon realised what an Olympics can bring with it.
“Before my event, there was a lot going on in my social media. I read comments like, ‘you have to do it, you have to do it’. And that’s fine. But then came a point where I got a bit scared. Because I wasn’t used to this before. We play so many other big competitions and no one speaks about it the same way. Now because it was the Olympics, people suddenly started to pop up. I had never experienced it before. I felt, ‘mujhe yeh samajh nahi aa raha (I’m not understanding this)’.”
The increased chatter on her social media was directly proportional to the expectations on her. It is one key lesson that Sift takes from her Games blip.
“This experience wasn’t about my training or execution. But the external factors that crop up around an Olympics, I will have to work a lot on that,” she said. “In other competitions, it is me saying that to myself. Here, it was the external noise telling me. So, dealing with that is something I’ll have to learn and keep in mind for the next Olympics.”
After the me-time postmortem exercise, Sift competed in a state competition in the 10m air rifle. She hopes to dabble in both 10m and 50m 3P events going ahead. “I will try and balance both. We have seen, say with someone like Manu (Bhaker), that it really helps when you’re competing in more than just one event.”
Sift next plans to compete at the World University Championships in New Delhi in November, giving the World Cup Final a miss because of niggles and the need for a break.
“It took me days to get back to being myself. Now, I’m much better. I did feel bad, more so because people had so many expectations from me. But I always tell myself not to let these things affect me so deeply, to the extent that I can never come back from it.”