Indian shooting great Jaspal Rana dies at 49 after illness

Jaspal Rana, one of India’s most decorated pistol shooters and a coach who helped shape Manu Bhaker’s Olympic rise, died at a hospital in New Delhi on June 11, 2026, at 49. He had recently undergone a stent procedure after chest discomfort at the ISSF World Cup in Munich, and his death removed a rare figure who excelled both as a champion athlete and as a builder of the sport’s next generation.

Born on June 28, 1976, in Uttarkashi, then in Uttar Pradesh and now in Uttarakhand, Rana began practising shooting in 1982 and started competing in 1987, according to the International Shooting Sport Federation. He represented India at the Atlanta 1996 Olympics, won a junior world championship gold in Milan in 1994, and built a record that made him one of the most successful names in Indian shooting history. Rana won eight Asian Games medals, including four golds, and 15 Commonwealth Games medals, including nine golds. At the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, he claimed three gold medals and one silver, including an event in which he equalled the world record at the time.

Rana’s influence on Indian shooting reached well beyond his own medal count. He coached Manu Bhaker between 2018 and 2021, returned to her camp before the Paris 2024 Olympics, and helped guide her to two bronze medals, making her the first Indian in the post-Independence era to win two medals at a single Olympics. In February 2025, he was appointed India’s high-performance coach for the 25m pistol discipline, a role that underlined how central he remained to the country’s shooting programme.

He also worked at the Jaspal Rana Institute of Education and Technology in Dehradun, extending his reach into the training base where future shooters are formed. The reactions to his death reflected that wider footprint. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called it a profound loss to Indian sports and said Rana had brought immense glory to the nation through extraordinary achievements in shooting. Manu Bhaker said she could not believe the news and described him as her coach, mentor, guide and friend. Abhinav Bindra called Rana a teammate and a gifted shooter who carried the pride of the country every time he stepped onto the range.

Rana received the Dronacharya Award in 2020, but his deeper legacy lies in the pipeline he helped create, from individual brilliance to medal-producing coaching. Indian shooting loses not only a champion, but one of the clearest bridges between its past glory and its next generation.