Asian Shooting championship: India take centre fire pistol gold, Manini bags 50m rifle prone bronze

Veteran pistol shooter Gurpreet Singh came up with a commanding performance for the second day in a row to help India win the team gold in the 25m centre fire event on the penultimate day of the Asian Shooting Championships in Shymkent on Friday (August 29, 2025).

A day after he won the 25m standard pistol individual gold and helped the country to a top-podium finish in the team category as well, the 37-year-old Army shooter, along with Rajkanwar Singh Sandhu and Ankur Goel, secured another big win in centre fire with an aggregate score of 1733 points, as India showcased its dominance in non-Olympic disciplines in the continental showpiece.

The Olympian, who came close to making it to the rapid-fire pistol final at the 2016 Rio Games, had a combined precision and rapid round score of 579, and together with Sandhu (583) and Ankur (571), the trio aggregated 1733 points, which earned them the team gold.

Vietnam (1720) and Iran (1700) won the silver and bronze respectively.

Young Indian shooter Manini Kaushik clinched her maiden individual international medal, bagging a bronze in women’s 50m rifle prone event after guiding the team to silver earlier in the day.

The 24-year-old from Jaipur, who also competes in 50m rifle 3 positions, shot 617.8 to take the individual bronze.

The South Korean duo of Hana Im 620.2 and Eunseo Lee 620.2 took the gold and silver respectively.

Manini had finished fifth in the competition but since two of the shooters ahead of her — South Korea’s Yelin Choi (620.1) and India’s Sift Kaur Samra (617.9) — were competing in the ‘Ranking Points Only’ (RPO) category, the Jaipur shooter took the bronze.

RPO shooters compete only for international ranking points and not for medals.

Manini had scores of 104.0, 103.8, 101.2. 103.3. 103.2. 102.3 in the six series of 10 shots each.

She also helped India to the team silver in 50m rifle prone, a non-Olympic discipline.

The trio of Manini (617.8), Surabhi Bharadwaj (614.4) and Vinod Vidarsa (613.8) aggregated 1846 points for silver, with the gold being won by South Korea (1856.8 points). Kazakhstan was third with 1828.2 points.

India’s Prachi Gaikwad took the junior women’s 50m rifle prone silver with a score of 616.6. The gold was won by South Korea’s Sehee Oh (618.6), while the bronze went to Kazakhstan’s Sofya Malkina (616.3).

The trio of Prachi (616.6), Anushka Thokur (607.6) and Tejal Nathawat (599.2) took the team bronze with an aggregate of 1823.4. South Korea, with a total of 1844, took the gold, while Kazakhstan (1830.1) bagged the silver.