Indian shooter Esha Singh won a gold medal in the women’s 10m air pistol event at the ISSF World Cup 2025 in Ningbo, the People’s Republic of China, on Saturday.
Esha’s podium finish marks India’s first medal at the Ningbo meet, which is the fourth and final ISSF World Cup of the year for rifle and pistol shooters.
None of the Indian shooters managed to make the final of any event in the first four days of competition in China before Esha Singh and Rhythm Sangwan managed to make the cut for the women’s pistol final on Saturday morning.
Rhythm (578 – 22x) and Esha (578 – 16x), in fact, were the final two to make the cut for the medal round after finishing ninth and 10th, respectively, in the qualifiers.
Another Indian, Palak, topped the qualifying round but was shooting for Ranking Points Only (RPO).
In the final, Rhythm finished fifth but Esha flipped the table from the qualifiers to take top spot with a score of 242.6, narrowly edging out home favourite Yao Qianxun who managed 0.1 less.
It all boiled down to the final shot with Esha managing 10.5 in response to Qianxun’s 10.4. Olympic record holder Oh Yejin of the Republic of Korea claimed the bronze medal.
This was Esha’s first-ever individual gold medal in any event at ISSF World Cups. Previously, she had claimed silver in the same event at Cairo 2022 and settled for second place in the 25m variant in Buenos Aires earlier this year.
The win also saw India sweep all four World Cup gold medals in the women’s event this year. Suruchi Singh had claimed the first three from Buenos Aires, Lima and Munich.
Meanwhile, none of the Indian shooters managed to make the final of the men’s 25m pistol event with Bhavesh Shekhawat and Pradeep Singh Shekhawat finishing 22nd and 23rd, respectively in the qualifiers.
India’s Paris 2024 bronze medallist Swapnil Kusale will be in action in the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions event on Sunday, the final day of the competition.
Manu Bhaker, Kusale’s fellow Olympic medallist from Paris 2024, is not competing at the Ningbo meet.