Manu Bhaker finishes fifth in women's 10m air pistol final at Asian Games 2026

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 had shot 579-20x in qualification, finished with a final score of 181.1. She was eliminated after the fourth stage of the final, with four shooters remaining in contention for the medals. Bhaker had begun the final strongly, recording 50.8 in the opening series and moving to 100.3 after the first two series. She was at 120.4 after the first stage of the elimination rounds and remained in medal contention through the next stages.

Her scores progressed to 140.4, 160.7 and finally 181.1, but she could not stay with the leading group in the decisive stages. The fifth-place finish comes after Bhaker had entered the final as India's only representative. She had qualified third earlier in the day, finishing behind Choo and Jiang in a closely contested qualification round. Bhaker's teammates Esha Singh and Suruchi Inder Singh had failed to make the final. Esha finished 15th with 572-12x, while Suruchi was 26th with 568-12x. India had earlier narrowly missed out on a podium in the team event, finishing fourth. The Indian trio of Bhaker, Esha Singh and Suruchi finished with 1719-44x, the same aggregate as bronze medallists Vietnam, but Vietnam had 46 inner-10s to India's 44. China won gold with 1735-56x, while South Korea took silver with 1730-55x.