Esha Singh takes silver in women's 25m pistol at Asian Games 2026

Esha Singh won the silver medal in the women’s 25m pistol individual at the Asian Games 2026 in Aichi-Nagoya on Monday, losing the gold to China’s Xiao Jiaruixuan in a shoot-off. The two finished level on 38 hits each, and the title was decided by successive shoot-off rounds.

The 21-year-old from Hyderabad is the current World No. 1 in the event. Over the past 18 months she has claimed two World Cup titles and a World Championships bronze. At the Munich World Cup in May she registered 43 hits in the final, setting senior and junior world records. At the 2022 Hangzhou Games she won individual silver and a team gold.

Singh qualified for the eight-shooter final in eighth place with a score of 580 and 22 inner tens, just inside the cut-off. She had a difficult start at these Games, placing 15th in the 10m air pistol with 572. In the 25m pistol team competition India trailed China by one point for the gold until Rahi Sarnobat missed her target in the first series, and India finished fifth.

In the final Singh’s ten series produced 5, 4, 3, 4, 4, 3, 3, 5, 3 and 4 hits, totalling 38. At one stage she was fourth and outside the podium places, but a perfect series of five shots pulled her back into contention. She was tied with Kim Hyon Suk on 34 hits at a later point, which required three shoot-offs to separate them; the first two ended 3-3 and Singh won the third 3-2 to secure at least silver. Kim took bronze with 34 hits.

The gold-medal shoot-off between Singh and Xiao began with both shooters scoring 4 in the first round. In the second gold-medal shoot-off Xiao hit 3 while Singh hit 2, giving Xiao a 7-6 advantage across the two rounds. Xiao, who had led by a point during the final, waited almost 15 minutes while the tie with Kim was resolved.

Xiao Jiaruixuan won the gold medal, Esha Singh claimed silver and Kim Hyon Suk earned bronze; Vietnam’s Trinh Thu Vinh finished fourth with 30 hits and China’s Shang Kaiyan was fifth with 24.