Manu Bhaker’s mixed outcomes at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou
Manu Bhaker won a team gold and narrowly missed an individual medal while competing at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, finishing the women’s 25m pistol team event on top and falling short in the individual final.
Bhaker arrived at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games as a young prospect under heavy expectation, having been one of India’s most promising shooters and carrying what the source describes as the hopes of over a billion Indian fans with unfinished business from earlier in her career. She had made her Asian Games debut in 2018 in Jakarta as a 16-year-old who arrived fresh off a gold at her first ISSF World Cup appearance, but Jakarta yielded no medals for her.
In Hangzhou Bhaker teamed with Esha Singh and Rhythm Sangwan in the women’s 25m pistol team event, the trio topping qualification with a combined score of 590 and beating China across both the precision and rapid stages to secure India’s gold medal in the event. That team gold was Bhaker’s first Asian Games medal and the only Asian Games gold she has won to date — the 25 m pistol team title.
Bhaker also competed in the individual 25m pistol final alongside Esha Singh; while Esha won silver, the 21-year-old Bhaker finished just shy of a bronze in the same individual event. Overall, the outing at Hangzhou constituted a significant checkpoint in her career trajectory.
The Indian shooting contingent at the Games contributed heavily to the country’s overall placing, with shooters accounting for 22 medals and helping India to a fourth-place finish in the shooting medal table. That collective haul formed part of the context for Bhaker’s subsequent international results.
At the Paris 2024 Olympics Bhaker became the first Indian woman to win an Olympic medal in shooting, taking bronze in the individual 10m air pistol event and adding a second bronze in the mixed team event alongside Sarabjot Singh. She paused competition for a few months after Paris to recover from the Games’ intensity.
Bhaker’s return to competition in 2025 produced mixed results: she missed the podium in the individual 25m pistol at the Asian Shooting Championships in Kazakhstan but earned bronze medals in the 10m air pistol individual and team events at the same meet and was part of a team that won silver at the World Championships in Cairo. A technical reset that involved a switch in equipment and a reunion with her early coach Jaspal Rana preceded further progress.
The technical changes coincided with Bhaker winning an individual silver in the 25m pistol at the 2026 Asian Shooting Championships in New Delhi. Now 24 years old, she is set to represent India at the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, and will participate in the Women’s 10m Air Pistol and Women’s 25m Pistol individual and team events.