Manu Bhaker finishes fifth in 10m air pistol final, misses Asian Games medal

Bhaker finished fifth in the women’s 1m air pistol final at the 2026 Asian Games Manu Bhaker finished fifth in the women’s 10m air pistol final at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Wednesday, missing out on a medal after qualifying third in the eight-shooter medal round.Bhaker, who shot 579-20x in qualifying, finished with a final score of 181.1. After the fourth stage, the final was eliminated, four shooters remained in the fight for medals.Rounding out the podium was South Korea’s Choo Gaeun, who won gold with an Asian Games record 246.3. China’s Shen Yiyao took silver with 241.3, while her compatriot Jiang Ranxin took bronze with 221.6. Chinese Taipei’s Cheng Yen-Ching finished fourth with 200.7, just ahead of Manu Bhaker.Bhaker started the finals strongly, scoring 50.8 in the opening series and moving to 100.3 after the first two series. After the first phase of the elimination rounds, she was at 120.4 and remained in contention for medals in the following phases.Asian Games full coverage|schedule|medal listHer scores progressed to 140.4, 160.7 and finally 181.1, but she was unable to stay in the lead group in the crucial stages.The fifth place comes after Bhaker entered the final as India’s sole representative.She qualified third on the day, finishing behind Choo and Jiang in a closely fought qualifying round.Bhaker’s teammates Esha Singh and Suruchi Inder Singh did not make it to the finals. Esha finished 15th with 572-12x while Suruchi was 26th with 568-12x.India earlier narrowly missed out on a podium finish in the team competition, finishing fourth. India’s trio of Bhaker, Esha Singh and Suruchi finished with 1719-44x, the same total as bronze medalists Vietnam, but Vietnam had 46 inside 10s to India’s 44. China won gold with 1735-56x, while South Korea took silver with 1730-55x.At the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games, India enjoyed a much stronger competition in the women’s 10m air pistol events. Palak Gulia won individual gold, Esha took silver. India also won silver in the women’s 10m air pistol team event as Gulia, Singh and Divya TS finished behind China and ahead of Chinese Taipei. Bhaker was not part of the Indian team in Hangzhou.