Esha Singh, 14, wins Junior World Cup silver

PUNE: Esha Singh , who became India's youngest National champion at 14 last year, clinched her maiden international medal as she took silver in women's 10m air pistol event at ISSF Junior (U-21) World Cup in Suhl, Germany, on Wednesday.


She has perhaps become the youngest Indian shooter to win a World Cup medal.

The Telangana shooter had shocked Heena Sidhu and Manu Bhaker to win the National championships last year. On Wednesday, she shot 236.6 to finish second behind Sevval Ilayda Tarhan, junior World Champion from Turkey. The Turkish shooter finished with 241.8. The bronze went to another Turkish shooter, Beyza Yilmaz with 215.4. Esha trains at Gagan Narang's Gun For Glory academy.

In men's 25m rapid fire event, Anish Bhanwala broke his medal-less run by clinching gold.

Bhanwala, who failed to win at the three editions of the senior World Cups this year, shot 29 in the junior final in Suhl to top the podium. He had qualified by shooting a high score of 584.

Other Indians, Adarsh Singh (17) and Agneya Kaushik (9), finished fourth and sixth respectively in the six-man final.

India won two more medals on the day in the 10m air rifle mixed team junior. The pair of Shreya Agrawal and Yash Vardhan won silver, finishing behind the Iranian pair of A Sadeghian and A Zolfagharia 17-11 in the final.

Mehuli Ghosh and Hriday Hazarika won the bronze in the event by beating USA in the bronze medal match.