New Delhi: At the Las Palmas shooting range, Saurabh Chaudhary marked a significant moment for Indian shooting by capturing the bronze medal in the men’s 10m air pistol event, securing India’s first medal at the ISSF World Cup 2025. Chaudhary concluded his final with a score of 219.1 after 22 shots.
Saurabh Chaudhary, who has previously earned gold at the 2018 Asian Games and Youth Olympics, demonstrated his prowess by clinching bronze in the fiercely contested 10m air pistol event. The ISSF World Cup’s second stage unfolded at the Las Palmas range, where top marksmen vied for glory.
China’s Hu Kai dominated the event, winning gold with a near-record score of 246.4, just 0.1 points shy of the world record. Brazil’s Felipe Almeida Wu, an Olympic medalist, captured the silver medal after a tight contest.
Both Saurabh Chaudhary and Varun Tomar advanced to the top-eight final, with Saurabh finishing fifth in the qualification round with 578 points and Varun securing eighth place with 576. The final started promisingly for the Indian pair, with Saurabh sitting in second and Varun in third after the initial five shots, while China’s Xie Yu took an early lead.
However, the difficulty in consistently hitting the 10-ring allowed Hu Kai to pull ahead following the first two single shots. The elimination phase saw the exit of Austria’s Richard Zechmeister and later German legend Christian Reitz.
Varun Tomar showed moments of brilliance with a 10.9 on his 14th shot, lifting him to seventh, and Saurabh also progressed with a 10.7 at the same stage. Yet, errors began to affect the Indian shooters, with Varun struggling with “nine syndrome,” while Saurabh climbed back to second place after the 16th shot thanks to scores of 10.2 and 10.6.
Following Xie Yu’s exit in fifth place after the eighteenth shot, the contest for the bronze and silver medals boiled down to a duel between Saurabh and Felipe Almeida Wu. Ultimately, Saurabh’s 21st and 22nd shots both scored 9.6, which allowed Wu to secure silver, while Hu Kai narrowly missed setting a new world record.
