New Delhi: Anish Bhanwala went through two shoot-offs to clinch the 25m rapid-fire pistol silver medal at the ISSF World Championships in Cairo on Sunday.
He first won a shoot-off for the third place and then came on top in a challenge with Ukraine’s Maksym Horodynets to finish second on the podium with a score of 28 in a battle hat tested the mettle of all six finalists.
The 23-year-old Bhanwala had disappointed in the Olympic last year with a 13th-place finish but qualified for the finals in Cairo in second place with a combined score of 585 (291 in Stage 1 of qualification on Saturday and 294 in Stage 2 on Sunday).
France’s Clement Bessaguet tallied 31 points to win the gold medal after topping the qualification with a score of 589.
Gailing from Haryana, Bhanwala won in a shoot-off for the fourth place with Germany’s Emanuel Mueller and then triumphed in overcame another shoot-off with bronze-medal winner Ukraine’s Maksym Horodynets.
His achievement in the event is only second to Vijay Kumar’s silver-medal claiming performance at the 2012 London Olympics.
SILVER ‼️ 🔔 🚨 Super shooting by Anish🇮🇳@anish_bhanwala for a first worlds medal, a 🥈 🔥 in the men’s rapid-fire pistol 🔫 with a score of 28 in the final. Here he (left) is with Clement Bessaguet (centre) 🇫🇷 🥇& Maksym Horodynets (right) 🇺🇦 🥉. #ISSFWorldChampionship #Cairo pic.twitter.com/kyqUX1NkMk
— NRAI (@OfficialNRAI) November 9, 2025
“It is difficult to explain in words but the feeling is completely unreal. I have tried a lot of times before; my preparation has been good but I could not deliver when it came to the competition,” Anish told ISSF.
“This time I was better prepared in my training and things worked out in my favour,” added Anish, who has qualified for the World Cup Final in Doha next month.
Adarsh Singh (575 – 285+290) and Sameer (571 – 286+285), the other Indians competing in the same category, finished 22nd and 35th respectively.
The Indian team of Anish, Adarsh and Sameer, finished fifth aggregating a score of 1731.
India’s air rifle mixed teams failed to qualify for the medal matches as the duo of Arjun Babuta and Elavenil Valarivan were placed eighth with a combined score of 632.3, 1.6 points less than the fourth-place pair.
The second pair of Rudrankksh Patil and Shreya Agrawal managed to finish in the 21st spot with a score of 628.8.