ISSF World C'ships: Samrat Rana crowned men's 10m air pistol world champion

In a historic evening for Indian shooting, Samrat Rana was crowned the men's 10m air pistol world champion at the 2025 ISSF World Championships in Cairo, Egypt on Monday.

Rana became the first Indian ever to win the individual air pistol gold medal at the prestigious competition.

He is also just the fifth Indian after Abhinav Bindra, Rudrankksh Patil, Tejaswini Sawant, Shiva Narwal-Esha Singh and to win the world championships in an Olympic event.

Rana started off well in the final and was leading by 0.3 points at the end of the first two-shot elimination.

He, however, soon lost the lead to fellow Indian Varun Tomar and fell as low as the third spot after the fourth round of elimination. It was a tense final with Rana's 181.2, placing him third just 0.2 shy of Tomar, who occupied the gold medal position then.

Rana then turned things around spectacularly in the next six shots, including two perfect 10.9s as he clinched the gold medal.

He needed a 10.3 or more with his final shot to pip China's Hu Kai for the gold medal and did so with a 10.6.

Rana eventually took the gold medal with a total score of 243.7, 0.4 ahead of the Chinese shooter.

Tomar completed a double podium for India, taking home the bronze with a score of 221.7.

"I still can't believe it. It was my first senior World C'ships and winning gold is unbelievable," an elated Rana said just minutes after his win.

"I was just focusing on my technique, not looking at the screen and trying to repeat the process," he added.

Earlier, Rana had finished on top of the qualification round with a score of 586. Tomar had finished second with a same score.

The duo along with Shravan Kumar (582), who failed to reach the individual final, helped India to the men's 10m air pistol team gold as well.

Olympic medallists falter

It was not all smooth sailing for India however. The 2024 Paris Olympics medallists Manu Bhaker and Swapnil Kusale failed to impress earlier in the day.

Kusale, in particular, had a disappointing outing as he failed to get past the elimination round of men's 50m rifle 3 positions. He shot a poor 575 to take an early exit even as Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar (592) and Niraj Kumar (592) made it to the qualification round.

Bhaker, competing in women's 10m air pistol, finished seventh in the final. She was leading the competition before a dismal 8.8 with her 14th shot dragged her to the seventh spot and ended her run.

The other Indian in contention in the final, Esha Singh finished sixth. She too had a similar story with a 8.4 shot with the 16th bullet knocking her out of contention.