Esha Singh won the silver while double Olympic bronze medallist Manu Bhaker finished sixth in Women’s 25m Pistol at the ISSF World Cup in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Saturday.
This silver marked Esha’s first individual medal in this event at an ISSF World Cup. The 20-year-old Paris Olympian had previously won a silver in 10m Air Pistol at the Cairo World Cup in 2022.
Reflecting on her victory, Esha said, ‘It feels really good. This is my favorite event compared to the others, so I’m very happy to have won. It was a bit of a struggle with the weather—it was quite cold yesterday and very windy, and I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything like that before. But I guess challenges like these make you stronger, so I’m glad I got to experience it and fought my way through it.”
Esha, who had a slower start, gained momentum in the third series, hitting four successful shots to climb from seventh to joint fourth. She then shot perfect series in the fifth, sixth, and seventh series, surging into second place, just one point behind China’s Sun Yujie. Esha finished with 35/50 after 10 series, while Sun shot 38 to claim the gold, her fisrt-ever international medal. Another Chinese Feng Sixuan took the bronze with 30 hits across her nine series of shots.
“The start didn’t go as I expected, but the sighters were okay, though I wasn’t able to tell what was going on. I think once the second series was done, I understood what was going on, and I just caught on to it. I repeated it to myself, kept visualizing, and stayed in my zone,” she added.
“I think I didn’t have too much confidence, nor did I have low confidence. I just wanted to see what was going on. I am working on a few things right now, so I wanted to see how it’s going. I just went with an open mind, but again, I wanted to fight for it,” Esha said, reflecting on her mindset during the competition.
Manu Bhaker, competing in her first international event since the Tokyo Olympics, scored a perfect five in the third series, which placed her joint-first with Sun and Feng. However, her performance faltered in the next three series, and she finished in sixth place after losing a shoot-off to Germany’s two-time Olympian Doreen Vennekamp. Manu hit only one successful shot in the shoot-off, while Vennekamp scored two, eliminating her from the competition.
Earlier, in the qualification round, Esha finished with a score of 579, securing the seventh spot in the final, while Manu Bhaker registered the third-best score of 585. With two of the top eight shooters competing in the RPO category, Esha made the cut for the final. Chinese shooters Sun and Feng scored 578 and 584, respectively, earning their places in the final.
The third Indian in the event, Simranpreet Kaur Brar, who had been in the top six after the first day, dropped out of contention, finishing in 13th place with a score of 576.
This silver for Esha added to India’s medal tally at the ISSF World Cup, following Sift Kaur Samra’s gold in the Women’s 50m Rifle Three Positions on Friday and Chain Singh’s bronze in the Men’s 50m Rifle Three Positions.