New Delhi: Three years ago, pistol shooter Esha Singh returned from the Hangzhou Asian Games with four medals —1 gold, 3 silver — and a soaring reputation.
There’s Suruchi Singh (10m), Manu Bhaker (10m, 25m) and the experienced Rahi Sarnobat (25m) in the squad as well, but Esha arrives in Japan with perhaps the strongest run of form. “Ultimately, it is down to training and preparation. In a sport that’s determined by unforgiving millimetres, consistency is brutally difficult to achieve. Esha appears to have found a way, though. “I guess something changed after the Paris Olympics. the exposure to such high quality, high intensity competition changed the way I look at this sport.” Although I managed only an 18th-place finish.
An Olympic debut, a clutch of World Cup medals, and a world record score in 25m event later, Esha will be among India’s strongest medal bets in both her events when the 30-member shooting squad begins its campaign at the Asian Games. Over the past 10 months, she has added two World Cup gold medals in 25m, a 10m World Cup silver, and an individual bronze at the World Championships (25m) to her burgeoning CV. She is the current world No.1 in 25m and world No.2 in 10m. At the Hangzhou World Cup in July, Esha beat China’s Yueyue Zhang, the 2025 Asian champion, by three hits to win gold, with Manu taking bronze.
There’s no secret sauce,” she said, when probed on her consistency. “Competition helps me find a higher gear, I guess,” she said, slightly bemused at her own streak.
That means countless match simulations and scenarios, right from pistol malfunction to suddenly telling his ward that the next 20 hits are the competition shots. “At the core of it, the two pistol events demand the same control, concentration and technique. Our training plans are tailored to her requirements. Also, breaking the pattern in training is equally important. “Oh, I am a very nervous shooter. In fact, I feel nobody feels so much pressure as me in a match. The more important the match, the more nervous I get. But rather than fighting it, I have come to embrace the pressure.
“It’s a decision we took consciously,” her coach Ronak Pandit said. You can’t let the mind relax,” the coach said. That said, she is not nearly the unflappable shooter she appears on the outside. It’s part of the process too,” she said.
