Indian shooter Anish Bhanwala secured a silver medal in the 25m rapid-fire pistol event at the ISSF World Championships on Sunday, marking his career’s most significant achievement.The 23-year-old from Haryana demonstrated remarkable composure during two intense shoot-offs in the final, scoring 28 points to claim the second position.Bhanwala qualified for the finals in second place with a score of 585, shooting 291 in Stage 1 on Saturday and improving to 294 in Stage 2 on Sunday.French competitor Clement Bessaguet won the gold medal with 31 points after leading the qualification round with 589 points.Bhanwala, who previously won silver in the mixed team event at the 2022 World Championships in Cairo, started strong with a perfect five in the opening series.After the first three series of five shots each, Bhanwala held second place with 16 points, while China’s Ni Zhixin led with 17 points.He maintained his performance in the elimination round, scoring two consecutive 4s and tying with three others at 20 points.The Indian shooter faced a temporary setback in the third elimination round, missing three targets for a total of 22 points, as Clement established a clear lead with 25 points.Bhanwala overcame shoot-offs against Germany’s Emanuel Mueller and Ukraine’s Maksym Horodynets, who won bronze, before advancing to the gold medal match against Clement.This achievement ranks as the second-best Indian performance in this event, following Vijay Kumar’s silver medal at the 2012 London Olympics.Fellow Indian shooters Adarsh Singh and Sameer finished 22nd and 35th with scores of 575 and 571, respectively.The Indian team of Anish, Adarsh, and Sameer placed fifth overall with a combined score of 1731.“It is difficult to explain in words, but the feeling is completely unreal,” said Anish in the post-match interview to ISSF. “I have tried a lot of times before; my preparation has been good but I could not deliver when it came to the competition. This time I was better prepared in my training and things worked out in my favour,” added Anish, who qualified for next month’s World Cup Final in Doha.In the Air Rifle mixed team event, Indian pairs struggled to reach the medal matches. Arjun Babuta and Elavenil Valarivan finished eighth with 632.3 points, while Rudrankksh Patil and Shreya Agrawal placed 21st with 628.8 points.
