Celebrated shooter Manu Bhaker lost in a shoot-off and had to settle for a silver medal in the women’s 25m pistol event at the Asian Shooting Championships 2026 in New Delhi on Monday.
In the eight-woman shootout, Manu Bhaker, who won two medals at the Paris 2024 Olympics, began slowly but mounted a late surge to draw level with Vietnam’s Nguyen Thuy Trang at 35-35 after the regulation 50 shots, fired in 10 series of five.
The Indian shooter was earlier trailing Trang by three shots after the fourth series. However, Manu Bhaker failed to follow up in the tie-breaking shoot-off. After finishing the first round at 2-2, Trang clinched the second one 3-2 to win the gold.
Incidentally, this was Manu Bhaker’s first-ever individual continental shooting medal in the 25m pistol. Her previous three, including two golds, were all in the 10m air pistol.
Manu Bhaker endured a disappointing outing at this year’s 10m air pistol event as she finished seventh in the individual category. However, she helped India clinch gold in the team category of the event.
In the 10m air pistol mixed team event, Manu Bhaker failed to make the final.
Meanwhile, Olympian Esha Singh, who became the 10m air pistol women’s Asian champion earlier in the competition, bagged the bronze medal in the 25m event with a score of 30.
Another Indian, Rhythm Sangwan, finished fourth with 27.
Esha bags 25m pistol team gold too
Earlier, Esha Singh had topped the standings in the qualification round with a score of 589 – 24x. Manu Bhaker was second with 584 – 18x while Rhythm Sangwan finished eighth with 578 – 22x.
Abhidnya Ashok Patil came ninth with 578 – 9x but was shooting for Ranking Points Only (RPO).
The trio of Esha, Manu and Rhythm also secured the women’s 25m pistol team gold for India with a cumulative score of 1751. Chinese Taipei and Vietnam finished with the silver and bronze, respectively.
Monday’s medal haul took India’s tally in senior events at the ongoing championships, which only features rifle and pistol events, up to 15 – eight gold, four silver and three bronze.
