Behind Indonesia’s shot into history — an Indian coach from Mumbai

Abdul Kayyum has spent the last few years building a pistol shooting programme in Indonesia. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Behind Indonesia’s first Asian Games pistol medal in 60 years is a coach from Santa Cruz in Mumbai. Abdul Kayyum is 40. He has spent the last four years trying to build something that barely existed when he arrived in Indonesia: a competitive pistol shooting programme.

At the 2026 Asian Games in Nagoya, the results of that work suddenly became impossible to miss.

When India’s pistol shooters travelled to the Games, they expected competition from the usual suspects — China, Korea and Vietnam, primarily. But in the men’s 10m air pistol team event, India found itself pushed out of the podium places by a team few had expected to challenge for a medal.

Sulthanul Aulia Maruf, Muhamad Iqbal Raia Prabowo and Wira Sukmana took silver for Indonesia, leaving India fourth in an event it had won gold in three years earlier in Hangzhou. The Indonesian team nearly won gold, only beaten on the inner ten shots after being tied with eventual champions China in the event.

But even that silver was remarkable. It was Indonesia’s first Asian Games medal in an Olympic-calibre shooting event in 60 years and its first in a pistol event in 64.

It was not an isolated result.

Indonesia had two finalists in the men’s pistol events and finished fourth in the 10m air pistol mixed team event. For a programme that had struggled to produce depth in pistol shooting, it was a remarkable transformation.

“Yeh toh out of syllabus aa gaya [This came out of syllabus],” one Indian shooting official was overheard saying with a smile.

But not entirely. The man behind Indonesia’s pistol shooting transformation is familiar face to Indian shooting.

He’s born and raised in the Santa Cruz suburb of Mumbai. His father was an engineer. His uncle was a sport shooter and a friend of Pawan Kumar Singh, who would later become one of Kayyum’s most important mentors. “They were the ones who introduced me to shooting,” he says.

Kayyum started shooting in 1996, when he was 10. “I started because I thought it was very interesting,” he says.

He won medals at the state level but never made the breakthrough at the national level. His best score was around 564 — nowhere near enough to compete with the best. “ Jazba tha but guidance nahi thi [I had the passion but not the right guidance],” he says.

Perjuangan tim Indonesia di Asian Games Aichi-Nagoya 2026 terus mencatatkan hasil. Setelah berhasil mempersembahkan medali emas pertama untuk tanah air, tim merah putih kembali menambah jumlah perolehan medali lainnya yakni 3 medali perak dan 3 medali perunggu. pic.twitter.com/LjnFVnuyvP

— KEMENPORA RI (@KEMENPORA_RI) September 24, 2026

In 2012, Singh was starting Guns for Glory alongside Olympic medallist Gagan and suggested that Kayyum try coaching. Kayyum realised that if he could not become an elite shooter himself, there was another way to remain in the sport. “I was also interested because I felt if I couldn’t be an elite shooter, then I could at least help others become so.”

He began working with young shooters in India. International shooter Abhinav Choudhary was among his students. For the next eight years, Kayyum mostly worked with developing athletes rather than established internationals.

Then in 2020 Indonesia came calling. “They were looking for coaches who could help build their shooting program,” says Pawan Kumar.

Kayyum was recommended.

He was offered the opportunity in December 2020 and travelled to Indonesia in January.

“I had family in Mumbai. I have a daughter who is 10 and a son who is only six, but I didn’t hesitate. Coaching is my passion. I took the decision to go to Indonesia because, at the end of the day, you have to go where you can make a difference. I felt I could do something in Indonesia,” he says.

He arrived to find a programme that was very different from the one he knew in India. “I realised very quickly that Indonesia is very serious about shooting. They have a world-class range in Senayan in Jakarta, but their players were very old and many of them didn’t train for more than a few weeks before a major event. It is very different to how it is in India,” he tells Sportstar.

He spent years working with young Indonesian shooters, trying to create the kind of depth that India takes for granted. “You can’t compare the Indian shooting scene with Indonesia. India is a giant. It’s one of the leading countries in the sport worldwide,” he says.

There were no private shooting academies in the same way there were in India. State structures are tied to the national federation and athletes train through the state academies. “In India, everyone can open an academy. That’s why Indonesia doesn’t have as many athletes as India,” he recalls.

Kayyum saw an opportunity. Rather than simply taking the existing athletes and trying to improve them, he wanted to create his own pipeline. “The first thing I proposed in 2021 was that I wanted to find my own athletes so I could work with them from the start.”

He went scouting for shooters across different states in Indonesia and came back with a batch of 20. Seven of those would become international.

Abdul says he was confident of developing something special even from this small group. “It’s not very difficult to make a shooting team. There is a lot of talent out there in Indonesia. The skills that you need for shooting are not very difficult to obtain. You need patience, focus, calmness and the ability to handle yourself under pressure. If you polish it early on, it’s not difficult to get something special,”he says.

It wasn’t as if there weren’t practical challenges at the start of his journey. Kayyum arrived without speaking Indonesian, and he still doesn’t speak much Bahasa Indonesia “I think India and Indonesia have a lot of similarities in culture, but I still only have kaam chalane layak bahasa (Just enough Bahasa to get by),” he says.

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He speaks to his athletes in English. At the beginning, communication was difficult, but the Indonesian federation helped by arranging English lessons. “The Indonesian federation was supportive. They hired a professor for English teaching, so they got better,” he says.

They rapidly improved at shooting as well.

The first major indication that things were trending up came in Jakarta in 2023. Kayyum’s young team comprising Prabowo and Arista Darmoyo, both just 18, won bronze in the 10m air pistol mixed team event at the World Cup — Indonesia’s first World Cup medal. “I wasn’t expecting such a result so soon. We were competing with Australia and the woman was an Olympian. But we still got a medal,” he says.

The result also created a new problem: expectations. The following year, Kayyum and his athletes tried to qualify for the Olympics. They did not make it. “The World Cup medal was a high performance. Next year we had really high expectations, but we were not yet at that level. Our kids had put on a better performance than what I knew we were realistically capable of performing regularly,” he says.

For Kayyum, the lesson was as important as the disappointment. “I think there is no limit to their potential. A lot of the barriers are psychological.”

But for the glitch at the Olympics, results have only trended upwards. And even when there were results without the magnitude of a medal at the Asian Games, Abdul knows they were special.

The first time Kayyum spoke to Sportstar was at the Asian Shooting Championships in New Delhi earlier this year. Indonesia’s Rihadatul Asifya had just won bronze in the junior 10m air pistol event. It was a minor medal in a major tournament, but for Kayyum it was worth celebrating with a selfie and a team dinner.

“Every time we are winning a medal, it’s almost like creating history. Every win is historic for Indonesia because we never had them. It’s the fact that I’m recognised for each of these wins which is its own reward, ” he had said then.

𝗦𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀, 𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆.

For Aslam Inamdar, kabaddi transformed a life of hardship into one of recognition, financial security and a career.

At 11 or 12, he collected discarded bottles and sold them to scrap dealers… pic.twitter.com/rDNgczuHn6

— Sportstar (@sportstarweb) September 27, 2026

Even the minor milestones — such as crossing the 580 mark in qualifying — were markers of progress.

“In India, for instance, the 580/600 score is not that special because each year 10 or more athletes cross it. But in Indonesia, Prabowo touched 580 for the first time in August last year. Two months later, we had two athletes shoot 581 and 583 in the South East Asian Games. Once that psychological barrier breaks, the only challenge is consistency,” he says.

At the Asian games, Prabowo topped qualification with 589 while his teammate Maruf shot a 583.

For Kayyum, the Asian Games medal is another marker rather than a destination. He’s already looking forward to the World Championships. “I’m looking forward to Indonesia winning an Olympic quota. Three of my athletes are capable of that,” he says.

An Olympic quota would be special for him as well as. “When I first went to Indonesia, I wasn’t thinking that it was going to be permanent for certain. But I knew very quickly that this was a great opportunity. When you are in a developing country in terms of sport, you have the chance to lead and the ownership to make something of your own,” he says.

Abdul says he’s aware that friends and colleagues in India are keeping track of his progress.

“Neha Chavan ma’am (who coaches Elavenil Valarivan) is someone I respect a lot and whom I consider a friend. We all used to work together and I’m proud to see how they have done. They are also proud of me,” he says.

He hopes the work he’s doing will make reflect on other Indian coaches too.

“India has a very good impression in world shooting. I think Indian coaches also deserve to be recognised worldwide as well, “ he says

Published on Sep 27, 2026

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