Manu Bhaker Falls Short at Asian Games 2026, Finishes Fifth in Womens 10m Air Pistol Event
Manu Bhaker finishes fifth in the Womens 10m Air Pistol at Asian Games 2026, missing out on a medal as South Koreas Gwon Choo wins gold.
Nagoya, September 23 (Daily Kiran) : Two-time Olympic medalist Manu Bhaker faced disappointment at the Asian Games 2026 in Nagoya. Competing in the women’s 10-meter air pistol individual event, she failed to reach the podium and secured a fifth-place finish in the finals.
South Korea’s Gwon Choo clinched the gold medal with a score of 246.3, setting both an Asian and Games record. China’s Yiyao Shen and Ranxin Jiang took home the silver and bronze medals with scores of 241.3 and 221.6, respectively. In the qualification round, Bhaker placed third with a score of 579, which included 20 ‘inner 10s.’ However, her final score of 181.1 in the finals was not enough to earn a medal for India in this event.
Looking ahead, Bhaker will focus on the 25-meter pistol event, where she will compete alongside Esha and 2018 Asian Games champion Rahi Sarnobat. Other Indian competitors in this event did not advance to the medal round. Esha finished 15th with a score of 572, while Suruchi placed 26th with a score of 568. This left the Indian trio of Esha, Bhaker, and Suruchi just shy of a medal, as they were only two ‘inner 10s’ away from the bronze medalists from Vietnam.
In the team event, India finished fourth with a total score of 1719-44x, while Vietnam won bronze with a score of 1719-46x. China secured gold with a score of 1735-56x, and South Korea took silver with 1730-55x. Interestingly, in the previous edition of the Asian Games, India had won three medals in the 10-meter air pistol event. Bhaker had aimed to rectify her lack of individual medals in Hangzhou but fell short of her goal. In the 2023 edition, she was part of the women’s 25-meter pistol team that won gold alongside Rhythm Sangwan and Esha Singh.
Earlier in the day, the women’s skeet team, consisting of Razia Dhillon, Maheshwari Chauhan, and Parinaz Dhaliwal, secured a bronze medal in their event with a total score of 331 in the qualification round. India had previously earned its first shooting medal of the Asian Games 2026 in the women’s 10-meter air rifle team event, where the trio of Elavenil Valarivan, Sonam Maskar, and Vidisha Vinod won silver. Following that, Elavenil also claimed a silver medal in the individual event. Additionally, Himanshu Dhillon and Rudraksh Patil won silver in the men’s 10-meter air rifle team event, with Himanshu and Rudraksh later securing silver and bronze medals in their individual events, respectively.
