The Precision of Persistence, Anish Bhanwala’s Bronze, India’s Shooting Dominance, and the Unseen Architecture of Sporting Success
On Wednesday, February 11, 2026, at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range in New Delhi, Anish Bhanwala stepped onto the finals podium of the men’s 25m rapid-fire pistol event at the Asian Rifle/Pistol Championship. Around his neck was placed a bronze medal—his third medal at an Asian Championship, a testament to nearly a decade of sustained excellence in one of shooting’s most demanding disciplines. Beside him stood Dai Yoshioka of Japan, the gold medallist with a record score of 31 hits, and Nikita Chiryukin of Kazakhstan, the silver medallist and former champion with 28 hits. Bhanwala’s score: 21 hits after six series, two hits in the seventh, and the same colour medal he had won three years ago at the Changwon Asian Championship.
This is not a story about a single bronze medal. It is a story about consistency, about the quiet, unglamorous labour of remaining at or near the summit of global sport for years, even decades, without the fanfare that attends Olympic glory or world-record performances. It is a story about the depth of Indian shooting, a discipline that has quietly become one of the country’s most reliable generators of international medal winners, producing champions across events, age groups, and genders with a regularity that rivals any sport in the nation. And it is a story about the Dr. Karni Singh Range itself—the venue that has witnessed countless such achievements, the institutional home of Indian shooting excellence, and the site where, on this Wednesday, Kazakhstan dominated the medal tally but India demonstrated once again that its shooting programme produces not merely occasional champions but sustained contenders.
Anish Bhanwala’s bronze is the forty-first gold, nineteenth silver, and fifteenth bronze that Indian shooters have accumulated at this championship. The numbers are staggering. Forty-one gold medals. Seventy-five total medals. This is not the performance of a nation that occasionally produces a talented individual; it is the performance of a system that works—a system of identification, training, competition, and support that has transformed shooting from an niche sport into one of India’s most reliable sources of international sporting achievement.
Yet the system that produces these results remains, for most Indians, invisible. It lacks the mass following of cricket, the visceral appeal of wrestling, the historical resonance of hockey. Its champions compete in relative anonymity, their achievements reported on inside pages and celebrated within the tight-knit community of shooting enthusiasts but rarely penetrating the broader public consciousness. Anish Bhanwala has been winning Asian Championship medals since 2019. He has represented India at the Commonwealth Games, the Asian Games, and multiple World Cups. His name is known to those who follow Indian shooting; it is unknown to most of the 1.4 billion Indians whose national pride he represents.
This is not a complaint; it is an observation about the structure of sporting attention. Shooting lacks the narrative simplicity of team sports, the dramatic physicality of combat sports, the mass participation of cricket. Its victories are measured in tenths of millimetres, in heartbeats between trigger pulls, in the microscopic adjustments of stance and grip that separate gold from silver from bronze. It rewards not explosive power but preternatural calm, not aggressive dominance but sustained concentration. It is, in many ways, the least cinematic of Olympic sports—and therefore the least likely to capture the public imagination.
But it is also, in India, one of the most successful. And the story of that success—its origins, its sustaining institutions, its future challenges, and its place in India’s broader sporting culture—deserves more attention than a single bronze medal on a single Wednesday can command.
The Contours of the Championship: Kazakhstan’s Dominance and India’s Depth
Day eight of the Asian Rifle/Pistol Championship belonged, by the objective measure of gold medals, to Kazakhstan. Four Kazakh shooters ascended the top step of the podium, demonstrating the depth and quality of a programme that has long been one of Asia’s strongest. Nikita Chiryukin, the former champion who topped the rapid-fire pistol qualifiers with a superb 582, added a silver medal to his nation’s tally. Kazakhstan’s performance was a reminder that Indian shooting, for all its achievements, does not operate in a vacuum; it competes against well-funded, technically sophisticated programmes across the continent, each seeking the same Olympic quotas and continental bragging rights.
Yet India’s performance, while less gold-rich on this particular day, was arguably more impressive in its breadth and depth. The medal tally—41 gold, 19 silver, 15 bronze—reflects not the dominance of a single superstar but the systematic excellence of an entire programme. Indian shooters are winning medals across events, across disciplines, across age groups. They are winning in the junior categories, where Adriyan Karmakar claimed gold in the 50m rifle prone junior men’s event, ensuring that the pipeline of talent flowing into the senior ranks remains robust. They are winning in the senior categories, where established champions like Bhanwala continue to perform at the highest level. They are winning in pistol, rifle, and shotgun events; in men’s, women’s, and mixed competitions; in individual and team formats.
This breadth of achievement is the signature characteristic of a mature sporting system. It is not dependent on the emergence of a once-in-a-generation talent; it is the product of institutionalised processes for identifying potential, developing skills, providing competitive opportunities, and supporting athletes through the inevitable peaks and valleys of international competition. India does not yet possess such systems in most sports. In shooting, remarkably, it does.
The Anish Bhanwala Story: From Prodigy to Perennial Contender
Anish Bhanwala’s bronze medal at the 2026 Asian Championship is best understood not as a discrete achievement but as the latest chapter in a career of sustained excellence. He first burst onto the international scene in 2018, when, at the age of 15, he won gold in the 25m rapid-fire pistol at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast, Australia. He was the youngest Indian shooter ever to win a Commonwealth Games gold medal. The achievement announced the arrival of a prodigious talent; the intervening eight years have demonstrated that the prodigy possessed not only talent but the temperament and work ethic required to sustain it.
Bhanwala’s rapid-fire pistol event is among the most demanding in shooting. Competitors must fire five shots at five separate targets within four seconds, then three seconds, then two seconds—the time limits decreasing as the competition progresses. The precision required is extraordinary; the margin for error is microscopic. A single lapse in concentration, a single flinch, a single millimetre of barrel movement can transform a potential gold medal into an also-ran finish. The event rewards not only technical proficiency but psychological resilience—the capacity to maintain focus and composure under conditions of extreme temporal pressure.
Bhanwala’s performance in Wednesday’s final exemplified these qualities. He qualified for the final in seventh position, with a score of 574—not dominant, but sufficient. In the final, he survived the early elimination rounds while former champion Chiryukin and eventual gold medallist Yoshioka established their dominance. He found himself in a joint lead after six series, with 21 hits—a position from which gold was attainable. His seventh series yielded only two hits, dropping him to bronze. This is not failure; it is the fine margin that separates medals of different colours at the highest level of international competition. Bhanwala has now won Asian Championship bronze in 2019, 2023, and 2026. The consistency is remarkable. The progression to gold remains elusive; the capacity to contend for it remains undiminished.
The Architecture of Excellence: How Indian Shooting Built a Sustainable System
The question that inevitably arises from India’s sustained success in shooting is how. How did a sport with no deep cultural roots in the country, requiring expensive imported equipment and specialised facilities, become a consistent producer of world-class athletes?
The answer lies in a combination of institutional foresight, private initiative, and competitive structure.
The National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) , the sport’s governing body, has over the past two decades implemented a systematic approach to talent identification and development. It has established national coaching camps, funded international exposure trips, and created a competitive calendar that provides athletes with regular opportunities to test themselves against high-quality opposition. It has navigated the complex politics of Olympic quota allocation and the even more complex logistics of ammunition procurement and international travel. It has, in short, professionalised Indian shooting to a degree unmatched in most other non-cricket sports.
The Dr. Karni Singh Range has served as the physical anchor of this professionalisation. Built for the 1982 Asian Games and subsequently upgraded, the range provides world-class facilities for training and competition. Its location in the national capital ensures accessibility for athletes from across the country. Its hosting of major international events, including this Asian Championship, provides Indian shooters with invaluable experience competing against top international opposition on home soil. The range is not merely a venue; it is an institution, and its presence has been essential to the development of Indian shooting.
The private sector has also played a crucial role. Unlike cricket, which commands the overwhelming majority of corporate sponsorship and media attention, Indian shooting has benefited from the targeted support of individual philanthropists, corporate foundations, and Olympic-focused initiatives. Programmes like the Olympic Gold Quest and the GoSports Foundation have provided financial support, coaching access, and career guidance to dozens of Indian shooters. Equipment manufacturers have partnered with the NRAI to ensure that Indian athletes have access to world-class pistols, rifles, and ammunition. This ecosystem of support, while modest by cricket standards, has been sufficient to sustain a high-performance programme.
The competitive structure of Indian shooting itself contributes to the sport’s strength. The domestic calendar includes numerous national championships, selection trials, and ranking competitions, ensuring that athletes are constantly tested and that the pathway from junior to senior levels is clearly defined. The intensity of domestic competition—hundreds of shooters vying for a handful of national team slots—creates an environment in which only the most resilient and skilled can survive. This is not always comfortable for athletes or coaches, but it is extraordinarily effective at producing champions.
The Challenges Ahead: Funding, Attention, and the Olympic Cycle
For all its achievements, Indian shooting confronts significant challenges that will determine whether its current success proves sustainable.
Funding is the perennial concern. Shooting is an expensive sport; a competition-grade pistol can cost several lakh rupees, and ammunition costs can exceed ₹1 lakh per month for a serious competitor. The NRAI receives government funding, but it is modest relative to the scale of the programme and the number of athletes requiring support. Corporate sponsorship is concentrated on a few star athletes; the majority of India’s international medal winners train and compete with minimal financial support. The gap between the sport’s achievements and its resources is a standing testament to the efficiency of its programmes—but also a vulnerability that could undermine future success if not addressed.
Attention is a subtler challenge. Shooting’s relative anonymity insulates it from some of the pressures that afflict more popular sports, but it also limits its capacity to attract resources, inspire young athletes, and sustain public interest between Olympic cycles. The sport’s peak visibility occurs once every four years, during the Olympic Games; the intervening 1,460 days are largely invisible to the broader public. This visibility deficit is not fatal—shooting has thrived despite it for two decades—but it does constrain the sport’s growth and its ability to advocate for its interests.
The Olympic cycle itself imposes a rhythm of pressure and disappointment that few sports experience as acutely. An Olympic quota is the product of years of preparation; an Olympic medal is the culmination of a career. Failure at the Games—and for the vast majority of athletes, even the most talented, the Games end in failure—can be devastating, both psychologically and in terms of public and institutional support. Indian shooting has experienced this cycle repeatedly: euphoria after medal-winning performances, recrimination after medal-less campaigns, and a quiet return to the work of preparation for the next quadrennium. Managing these emotional and institutional fluctuations is an unseen but essential dimension of the sport’s leadership.
Conclusion: The Bronze and Beyond
Anish Bhanwala’s bronze medal at the Asian Rifle/Pistol Championship will not generate headlines. It will not be commemorated on billboards or celebrated in prime-time television specials. It will not produce a flood of corporate sponsorship offers or a surge of young athletes rushing to enrol in shooting academies. It will, in all likelihood, be remembered primarily by those who follow Indian shooting closely—and by Bhanwala himself, who will add it to his collection of medals and return to the range to prepare for the next competition.
But this bronze medal, and the forty-one gold medals that surround it in India’s championship tally, are evidence of something significant. They demonstrate that India is capable of building world-class sporting programmes in disciplines that lack deep cultural roots, mass participation, or overwhelming commercial support. They demonstrate that systematic investment in talent identification, coaching, and competition infrastructure can produce sustained excellence across multiple generations of athletes. They demonstrate that Indian athletes, given adequate support and opportunity, can compete with and defeat the best in the world.
The challenge for Indian shooting is not to produce more medals—it is already producing them in impressive quantities. The challenge is to sustain the system that produces these medals, to expand access to the sport beyond its current demographic base, and to secure the resources necessary to continue competing against better-funded programmes from Europe, North America, and East Asia. The challenge is to ensure that the pipeline of talent flowing from junior to senior levels, from domestic to international competition, from promising debutants to established champions, remains robust and resilient.
Anish Bhanwala has been part of this pipeline for nearly a decade. He won his first Asian Championship medal in 2019, his second in 2023, his third in 2026. He will, in all likelihood, continue to compete for Indian selection, continue to qualify for international finals, continue to add medals to his collection. He is not the youngest shooter on the range anymore; that distinction belongs to athletes like Adriyan Karmakar, who won junior gold on the same day that Bhanwala won senior bronze. But he remains among the most consistent, the most reliable, the most respected.
This is the quiet triumph of Indian shooting: not the occasional gold medal that captures national attention, but the steady, year-after-year accumulation of excellence across events, age groups, and generations. The forty-first gold medal at this championship is not an endpoint; it is a milestone on a continuing journey. The bronze around Bhanwala’s neck is not a consolation prize; it is a testament to persistence, to the willingness to remain in the arena year after year, to contend for medals even when gold remains tantalisingly out of reach.
There will be other championships, other finals, other medals. There will be Olympic quotas to secure, Olympic campaigns to mount, Olympic dreams to pursue or to mourn. There will be new champions emerging from the junior ranks and old champions retiring from international competition. There will be funding crises and administrative controversies and the endless, unglamorous labour of training and competition.
And through it all, there will be Indian shooters on podiums across Asia and the world, collecting medals in the relative anonymity of their chosen sport, representing their country with skill and composure and the quiet pride of those who know that their achievements are earned through years of patient, persistent effort. Anish Bhanwala’s bronze medal is one such achievement. It will not be the last.
Q&A Section
Q1: What is the significance of Anish Bhanwala’s bronze medal in the context of his career, and why does the article emphasise “consistency” over the medal’s colour?
A1: The bronze medal is significant because it represents the third Asian Championship medal of Bhanwala’s career (previously 2019 and 2023), demonstrating nearly a decade of sustained excellence at the continental level. The article emphasises consistency over colour because Bhanwala’s career trajectory—from teenage prodigy (youngest Indian shooter to win Commonwealth Games gold in 2018) to perennial contender—exemplifies the quiet, unglamorous labour of remaining at the summit of international sport. The 25m rapid-fire pistol event is exceptionally demanding, requiring competitors to fire five shots at five targets within progressively decreasing time limits (four seconds, three seconds, two seconds). Success requires not only technical proficiency but extraordinary psychological resilience. Bhanwala’s ability to qualify for finals and contend for medals year after year, across multiple championships and competitive cycles, is statistically rarer and arguably more impressive than a single gold medal achieved by a one-time prodigy. His progression from seventh qualifier to joint leader after six series, followed by two hits in the seventh series that yielded bronze, illustrates the fine margins that separate medals of different colours at the highest level.
Q2: What does India’s overall medal tally at the championship (41 gold, 19 silver, 15 bronze) reveal about the state of Indian shooting as a system, beyond individual performances?
A2: The medal tally reveals that Indian shooting has achieved systematic excellence rather than dependence on individual superstars. The key indicators of this systemic maturity are: (1) Breadth across events: Medals in pistol, rifle, and shotgun disciplines, demonstrating comprehensive programme strength rather than specialisation in a single event. (2) Depth across age groups: Adriyan Karmakar’s junior gold alongside Bhanwala’s senior bronze confirms a robust talent pipeline from junior to senior ranks. (3) Consistency across time: Forty-one gold medals cannot be accumulated through occasional exceptional performances; they require sustained excellence across multiple competitions, athletes, and coaching generations. (4) Competitive density: Two Indians (Bhanwala and Adarsh Singh) qualifying for the rapid-fire pistol final from the same championship indicates that India is producing multiple world-class competitors in the same event, creating internal competition that drives improvement. This is the signature characteristic of a mature sporting system: institutionalised processes for identification, development, support, and competition that function independently of any single athlete’s career arc.
Q3: What are the key institutional factors that the article identifies as contributing to India’s sustained success in shooting?
A3: The article identifies four interconnected institutional factors:
First, the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) has professionalised the sport through systematic talent identification, national coaching camps, international exposure trips, and a competitive domestic calendar. It has navigated complex logistics of ammunition procurement, international travel, and Olympic quota allocation.
Second, the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range provides world-class training and competition infrastructure in the national capital. Its hosting of major international events gives Indian shooters invaluable experience competing against top international opposition on home soil. It functions as an institutional anchor for the entire shooting ecosystem.
Third, private sector support through organisations like Olympic Gold Quest and the GoSports Foundation provides targeted financial assistance, coaching access, and career guidance. Equipment manufacturers have partnered with NRAI to ensure access to world-class pistols, rifles, and ammunition. This ecosystem, while modest by cricket standards, has been sufficient to sustain a high-performance programme.
Fourth, the competitive structure of Indian shooting—numerous national championships, selection trials, ranking competitions—creates intense domestic competition. Hundreds of shooters vie for a handful of national team slots, an environment that is uncomfortable but extraordinarily effective at producing champions. Only the most resilient and skilled survive.
Q4: What challenges does the article identify as threatening the long-term sustainability of Indian shooting’s success?
A4: The article identifies three primary challenges:
First, funding constraints: Shooting is expensive (competition-grade pistols cost several lakh rupees; ammunition can exceed ₹1 lakh monthly). Government funding is modest relative to programme scale and athlete numbers. Corporate sponsorship concentrates on a few stars; most international medal winners train with minimal support. The gap between achievements and resources is a testament to efficiency but a vulnerability that could undermine future success if unaddressed.
Second, the attention deficit: Shooting’s relative anonymity limits its capacity to attract resources, inspire young athletes, and sustain public interest between Olympic cycles. Peak visibility occurs once every four years; the intervening 1,460 days are largely invisible. This visibility deficit is not fatal but constrains growth and advocacy capacity.
Third, the Olympic cycle’s emotional and institutional demands: An Olympic quota requires years of preparation; an Olympic medal culminates a career. Failure at the Games—the fate of most athletes, even the most talented—can devastate individuals and programmes. Indian shooting has experienced this cycle repeatedly: euphoria after medals, recrimination after medal-less campaigns, quiet return to preparation. Managing these fluctuations is an unseen but essential leadership challenge.
Q5: What does the article mean by describing shooting as “the least cinematic of Olympic sports,” and how does this characterisation relate to its broader argument about sporting attention?
A5: The characterisation refers to shooting’s lack of narrative and visual elements that typically attract mass audiences and media coverage. Unlike cricket (team dynamics, sixes, wickets), wrestling (physical combat, dramatic takedowns), or athletics (speed, power, visible exertion), shooting competitions unfold in near-silence, with athletes standing motionless for extended periods, their victories and defeats determined by microscopic variations in target impact. The sport rewards preternatural calm and sustained concentration rather than explosive power or aggressive dominance. It lacks the “cinematic” qualities—drama, movement, physical confrontation, emotional visibility—that facilitate narrative construction and spectator engagement.
This characterisation relates to the article’s broader argument about the structure of sporting attention. Shooting’s success occurs largely beneath the threshold of public consciousness because the sport’s inherent characteristics do not align with the preferences of broadcasters, sponsors, and casual fans. This is not a failure of shooting or its athletes; it is an observation about how attention is allocated in contemporary sports media. The article neither celebrates nor laments this reality; it simply notes that shooting’s achievements occur in relative anonymity and that this anonymity has consequences for the sport’s capacity to attract resources and inspire participation. The challenge for Indian shooting is not to become more cinematic—an impossible and perhaps undesirable transformation—but to sustain its excellence within the constraints imposed by its modest place in the hierarchy of sporting attention.
