On the firing line, Esha Singh was hunting down her opponents with every bullet that left her pistol, and putting her Chinese opponent under increasing pressure. In the stands, her father Sachin was single-handedly drowning out the noise made by a thousand Chinese supporters.
He barked out instructions, shouted words of encouragement and whistled; a father’s desperate attempt to assure his child she wasn’t alone in an intense battle, in an intimidating setting of a nerve-wracking final.
What a performance Esha Singh, damn, 5 on 5 so many times. What a comeback ❤️🇮🇳#shooting #AsianGames2022 #india #today pic.twitter.com/0wPESfgUl7
— Kalptaru Agarwal (@kalp_taru) September 27, 2023
It didn’t matter to him that Esha couldn’t hear a word. She had tucked in the earplugs, put the blinkers on and was unwavering despite multiple distractions and stoppages in a riveting 25m Pistol final that was halted twice – once because of a routine problem due to flying shells and then bizarrely for a shot that missed a target.
After a seemingly never-ending match with twists and turns after every shot, Esha finished with a credible silver, finishing behind China’s Liu Rui who set a Games record en route to her gold medal.
The other Indian in the fray, Manu Bhaker – who shot an incredible total of 590 out of a possible 600 to top the 43-shooter qualification round – finished fifth.
There were times in the final when it looked like Manu would return with a medal instead of Esha. But the 18-year-old, mentored by Olympic medallist Gagan Narang, mounted a stunning comeback to leave behind her compatriot and her other challengers from South Korea and China.
Narang, who sat a few rows in front of Sachin, signalled a thumbs-up every time Esha climbed up a spot. Nine years ago, the two of them hatched the plan to turn Esha into a shooter over a meal of sumptuous biryani.
“I am a sportsman myself,” says Sachin, a rally car driver. “Esha tried different sports early on but it wasn’t working out. Then, a close friend of Gagan and I, who is a shotgun shooter, had called us to Hyderabad for a picnic where they had biryani and all. Esha was with me, we discussed over the meal.”
The next morning, they took a nine-year-old Esha to the shooting range. “The sound of the sport got her interested in it. She has not looked back since, winning a medal at almost every tournament she’s taken part in,” Sachin says.
Most of her matches have followed a trend: Esha has always come back from behind and staged late comebacks. “Right from her early days, she’s done that,” Sachin says. “Mentally, she’s very strong.”
On Wednesday, she had to dig deep mentally and emotionally. Sleepless for two nights due to the match-induced anxiety, Esha ensured her rivals wouldn’t sleep peacefully tonight.
She was among the slowest starters in the final, where the athletes had to shoot a maximum of 50 rounds in 10 series of five shots each. A shot would be considered a hit only if the bullet found the 10-ring and Esha missed three out of her five attempts in the first series.
The poor opening set her back from the rest of the pack. The eventual gold medallist from China, Rui Liu, was already marching out of her sights while Manu Bhaker got involved in the medal race with her precision shooting.
That’s when Esha turned things around, scoring a five-on-five in the third series. In one go, she leapfrogged three shooters: Iranian veteran Haniyeh Rostamiyan, Singapore’s Shun Xie Teo and Bhaker, who complained that the cartridge shells were flying in her direction every time the shooter next to her fired, causing a distraction.
After a near five-minute delay, Bhaker repositioned herself but that only made matters worse for her as her performance spiralled from there. While she hit just one target to fall out of the podium race, Esha further strengthened her bid for a medal by missing just one target. This time, China’s Sixuan Feng became Esha’s victim.
As she launched an incredible fightback, Sachin was doing his thing in the stand; the 52-year-old shouting out loud to make himself heard in the Chinese din.
Amidst the noise and the tension, South Korea’s Jiin Yang, who was in a silver medal position, complained that one of her hits wasn’t registered. Everyone inside the arena was puzzled when the emcee announced that there was a ‘missing shot’ which ‘we are trying to find.’
The bizarre situation saw the judges go on a wild goose chase for a good 15 minutes. As they inspected the target, the backup target (a sheet placed behind the main target) to check if a bullet had indeed pierced through any of them, the rest of the shooters stood aimlessly, waiting for the match to resume.
When it did, Esha came back stronger – missing just one out of her next 15 shots to go past the second-placed South Korean.
“For me, the break was an advantage,” she says. “I got a good amount of rest and my muscles relaxed. I felt more composed after that break.”
With her flawless shooting, Esha closed the gap on the leader but eventually ran out of steam in the final five shots, missing three of them.
It was a silver eventually. The comeback, though, was worth its weight in gold.
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