Indian sharp shooter Ayonika Paul gears up for the upcoming Rio Olympics

Panvel: Indian shooter Ayonika Paul, who will represent the country at the Rio Olympics, today said she thrives under pressure and is now focusing on polishing her technique ahead of the Games.

Ayonika, a second year ME student at the Pillai College of Engineering, will compete in the 10 meters air rifle event at the Olympics.

"They (preparations for the Olympics) are just as planned, what I had planned before on the books and it is according to that and I am happy about it. We are quite experienced right now and it's all about how we handle it (pressure). And for me, I always love to play with a bit of pressure. Whatever preparations had to be done, are done, right now I am just polishing my technique," Ayonika told reporters here.

The Indian shooter, who won the silver medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, was today felicitated by the Mahatma Education Society's Pillai Group of Institutions here, around 50 kms from Mumbai.

"The feelings on that day (When she had secured her Olympic quota on January 29), it was all about that moment when I qualified, that time I was emotion-less because, I knew I will be winning the quota because I had put in so much of hard-work.

"But that after I won and when everybody came and hugged me, that finally I came to know that after four years I am getting it (to play in the Olympics)," she said.

She had bagged the silver medal in the Asia Qualifying Round in New Delhi to qualify for Olympics which is scheduled to take place at Rio de Janeiro from August 5 to 21.