Talat will compete in the 10m and 25m air pistol events
\n JHELUM
\nSlowing her breath and focusing on a bullseye in her pistol\u2019s sights, Kishmala Talat is aiming to become the first woman from Pakistan to win an Olympic medal.
\nAt the Paris Games starting on July 26, Talat will compete in the 10m air pistol and 25m pistol events, going for glory abroad and defying stereotypes back home.
\nPakistan\u2019s medal prospects are undercut by modesty codes which dissuade women from participating in sport.
\nThe 21-year-old Talat, who comes from a military family, is the first Pakistani woman to qualify for Olympic shooting.
\n\u201cIn Pakistan there\u2019s a prevalent taboo that dictates girls should stay at home, do girly things, and play with dolls, while boys are to play with guns,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cI see no one as competition. I compete with myself,\u201d she told AFP at a target range in the eastern city of Jhelum.
\n\u2018Wanted to do more\u2019
\nTalat has won dozens of medals at national level and four internationally, including Pakistan\u2019s first shooting medal ever, a bronze, at the Asian Games last year.
\nPakistan have only ever won 10 Olympic medals \u2014 all by men \u2014 and none since the 1992 Games.
\nTalat, who has just completed her university degree in communications, realistically faces an uphill task to get on the podium in Paris.
\nShe has a global ranking of 37th in the 10m event and is 41st in the 25m, according to the International Shooting Sport Federation.
\n\u201cI longed for recognition. I wanted to do more,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cI wanted that whenever shooting is discussed, or \u2018Kishmala\u2019 is mentioned, it would be associated with someone who did something great for Pakistan.\u201d
\nHoping to defy the odds, she spends 10 hours a day training \u2014 one hour of physical exercise and then four hours each on the 10m and 25m ranges.
\nThe last hour in the evening is spent meditating, concentrating on the flickering flame of a candle in an attempt to hone the zen needed to find her target.
\n\u201cI am dedicated to giving my best performance to let Pakistan\u2019s name shine,\u201d said Talat.
\nShe takes her shots with her spare hand stuffed in her pocket and one eye covered by custom-fit glasses, her face frozen in expressionless concentration.
\nThe sport of target shooting is not a common pursuit in Pakistan.
\nCricket is by far the most popular pastime, but all sports suffer from chronic underfunding.
\nHowever, guns are omnipresent in Pakistan.
\nSwiss weapons research group the Small Arms Survey estimated in 2017 that there were nearly 44 million legal or illicit guns held by civilians in Pakistan.
\nThe figure is the fourth highest globally and means there are 22 weapons per every hundred citizens in the nation of more than 240 million.
\n\u2018City of Martyrs\u2019
\nTalat\u2019s talent has been nurtured by Pakistan\u2019s military. Talat is trained by officers and a foreign coach at a military facility in Jhelum, known as \u201cCity of Martyrs\u201d for its strong ties to the armed forces.
\nShe hails from the garrison city of Rawalpindi, where the armed forces are headquartered.
\nHer 53-year-old mother, Samina Yaqoob, serves as a major in the military\u2019s nursing service and proudly displays her daughter\u2019s many medals in the family living room.
\nYaqoob once dreamed of competing herself.
\n\u201cI got married and got busy with that life, but it makes me happy when I see my daughter move forward with my dream,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cGirls should step forward, observe, work diligently and their parents should support them,\u201d the mother said.
\n\u201cShe believes she can do anything. That\u2019s just who she is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Talat will compete in the 10m and 25m air pistol events JHELUM Slowing her breath and focusing on a bullseye in her pistol\u2019s sights, Kishmala Talat is aiming to become the first woman from Pakistan to win an Olympic medal. At the Paris Games starting on July 26, Talat will compete in the 10m air […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415287,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-415271","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n