Tanvi Lathwal’s story doesn’t follow the neat trajectory sports biographies like to chart. There was no cradle-to-podium script. No family legacy in shooting. No whispers of destiny fulfilled. What there is, though, is a quiet shift in focus, a bike accident in 2019 that disrupted her early flirtation with badminton, and a teenage girl who, instead of sulking on the sidelines, picked up an air pistol.
At 15, she’s now Australia’s number one junior shooter in the 10m air pistol category. She’s heading to Suhl, Germany, this May to represent the country at the ISSF Junior World Cup, and she’s doing it as the first shooter of Indian origin to pull on the green and gold. But this isn’t a story about boxes ticked or barriers broken. It’s more layered than that.
Born in Sydney in 2009, Tanvi’s earliest years were spent between schoolbooks and community life in the suburbs, her family having moved to Australia from Haryana in 2008. Her father Harveer, employed with a German firm, had settled the family in Australia before they returned to India in 2015 for a long spell to reconnect with their roots. It was in India that Tanvi picked up badminton seriously, showing early promise on court.
Then came the accident. A bike fall meant months off her feet. Badminton was put on hold. Shooting, introduced initially as a light recovery option, grew into something deeper. She liked the stillness of it, the measured pace, the idea that everything rests on one moment and one breath. The sport gave her not just focus, but a reason to recalibrate.
Despite holding only Australian citizenship, Tanvi trained and competed in India, and by 2022, her results in selection trials were good enough to land her a place on the Indian junior squad. But without an Indian passport, international representation was off-limits. The National Rifle Association of India permitted her to compete in domestic events as a foreign national, but it was clear she needed a different path if she was to reach the world stage.
That path arrived when her family moved back to Sydney in 2023. She joined the Genesis Pistol Shooting Club, quickly worked through the regulatory requirements for Australian shooters, and began competing with the sort of consistency coaches dream about. Her scores at three major tournaments—564 at the New South Wales State Championships, 559 in Queensland, and 560 at the Junior Nationals—won her gold in all three. She didn’t just qualify for the national team; she topped it.
Shooting is often misunderstood—reduced to numbers or medals. But those numbers don’t show the early mornings, the control it takes to tame the nerves, the mental maths required for centring the sights. Tanvi thrives on those details. She keeps track of her shooting logs, her practice patterns, her breathing cadence. Her favourite shooter? Manu Bhaker, the Indian teen sensation who made it to the Olympics by 18. Tanvi’s walls have Bhaker’s posters. Her YouTube history is full of Bhaker’s final rounds. The admiration is real, but so is the ambition to compete at the same level—in her own jersey.
And that’s what makes Tanvi’s story interesting. It’s not framed in nostalgia or nationalistic pride. It’s not about choosing between India and Australia, but about taking what each offered when the moment called for it. India gave her a launchpad. Australia gave her the platform. The rest came from Tanvi herself.
Her father speaks openly about the frustrations they faced trying to navigate the system in India. The rules around nationality were clear, but the doors they closed felt at odds with Tanvi’s growing talent. Returning to Australia wasn’t about giving up. It was about making things possible.
Tanvi doesn’t speak in clichés. When asked what she’s most looking forward to in Germany, she mentions “adjusting to the new climate” and “watching how the others prepare between rounds”. She’s excited, yes, but grounded. Her focus is on the target—quite literally.
The Suhl competition isn’t just about medals. For Tanvi, it’s about finally entering the global conversation as a competitor. She’ll be up against the best junior shooters from Europe, Asia, and the Americas. The stakes are high, but she isn’t flustered. Shooting, as she says, is about “staying still while the world moves”.
There’s something oddly fitting about her story happening between two continents. A young girl of Indian heritage, trained across two countries, now carrying Australia’s hopes in a sport where nerves are everything. Tanvi doesn’t speak much about pressure. She speaks about breathing, about form, about the next shot.
There are few teenage athletes with this kind of calm. Fewer still who’ve had to adapt across two sporting systems, two countries, and a series of near misses. Tanvi’s trajectory may have taken a few detours, but she’s not waiting for applause. She’s busy checking her grip and measuring her stance. That’s what matters before the trigger is pulled.
And when it is, Australia might just find itself cheering for a young girl with Haryana roots and Sydney precision—eyes locked on a target, unaware she’s becoming a story worth telling.
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