Five pistol and three rifle shooters all made it to the final of their respective events at these World Championships, but barring Jaypal Malviya’s men’s 10m air pistol silver and Niraj Kumar’s men’s 50m 3P rifle bronze, the others have been unable to convert advantageous positions into medals or LA Olympic quota spots.
India’s high-performance director Pierre Beauchamp spoke to The Indian Express between the Asian Games and the World Championships — two high-profile events in the shooting calendar that took place within the space of a month.

“Our goal is to get 40% of our shooters into the finals. And then the next goal is 60% from finals to podium. We did that in the last World Championships in 2025,” said Beauchamp. “Our goal is to get six medals in L.A. And so we always look to measure those qualification conversion percentage and the podium conversion percentage in every event. Moreover, we also calculate where our shooters shot relative to what it would take to get into finals. So we know the gap percentage, and we know the gap percentage against every other team in the world,” he added.

In the eight combined events of pistol and rifle that came with quotas, eight Indian shooters made it to the finals of their event out of a possible 24. Essentially, thirty percent of Indian shooters were able to make it to the finals, a shade below the ask made by the country’s shooting programme.

The story in the finals followed a similar pattern, and the same dip.

Two podiums out of eight opportunities is far from the 60% benchmark set. Even if India’s trap shooters win two medals on Thursday, that finals-to-podium conversion rate still dips under the targeted mark.

It is also a far cry from the 2025 World Championships, where Indians picked up an unprecedented seven medals.
According to Beauchamp, there is incentive for making finals at the domestic level for Indians. Each podium finish in the final adds to the overall average. The hope was that this would provide training for international situations should they find themselves in the finals. “We give out bonus points for finals. When you see a score of, say, 588.6, it’s probably because they got .2, .2, .2. for what they did in the finals of the trials,” said India’s HPD.

Now in a far tougher international situation, where some of the best in the world are vying for Olympic quota spots less than two years removed from LA, those numbers have understandably fallen.

No cognitive rest

Part of the reason is the close proximity to the Asian Games. With no cognitive rest for most Asian shooters, participating in back-to-back top-tier events has been taxing. Add the Indian context of rolling trials, where a spot in the national team is based on constantly outflanking a horde of other shooters, all of whom are trying equally hard to get to the top – it’s a stressful situation. At the Asian Games, it showed up with a lack of individual golds.

“We were 10% below what we had projected. Obviously, shotgun was right on the mark. We were 6 for 6 there. Rifle, we overperformed in rifle by 118%. The only area was in the pistol and that’s where we have the most volatility,” said Beauchamp. “If you look at your men’s pistol team, if you know historically, we have a lot of new characters. And so they don’t have that international experience. And so that’s the nature of the beast with the men’s pistol event. Our women’s pistol is generally extremely strong and one of the strongest in the world. But it didn’t happen for them at the Asian Games.”

Another reason for the poor showing at these World Championships has been the rifle team’s underperformance. Take away the Niraj’s silver and Elavenil Valarivan’s sixth-place finish, and what lies behind is an overall poor set of results – be it the young 10m men’s rifle team, all of whom failed to even reach the finals – or the 50m women’s 3P team, who had the experience in Anjum Moudgil and Ashi Chouksey, but were still unable to make it to the final eight of their event.

The 10m Women’s pistol team, after a poor Asian Games campaign, looked to have course-corrected when Manu Bhaker and Esha Singh made it to the eight-woman final. But Esha was the first to exit the competition, and Bhaker was in four different shoot-offs, finally bowing out in fourth when she missed her final two shots of the competition. In some instances such as Bhaker’s, it really has been that close.