Review of 2023 ISSF competition: Indian teenagers Shiva and Singh win mixed team 10m air pistol world title set for Olympic debut

Two Indian teenagers interrupted China’s run of success at the ISSF World Championships in Baku by winning the mixed team 10 metre pistol competition – one of three mixed events that will feature at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

In a fluctuating competition, 17-year-old Shiva Narwal and 18-year-old Esha Singh drew away to win 16-10 in their final against Turkey’s 50-year-old Yusuf Dikeç and 23-year-old Şevval Tarhan.

Singh, who became the youngest ever winner in the women’s national 10m air pistol event at the age of 13, posted on social media:

“I cannot describe this feeling in words! Really grateful to be World Champion in the Mixed Team Event in 10m creating a history at the 53rd World Championship Baku”.

“This was much needed, ” Narwal said. “I learned a lot of things. 

“I came with a mindset that I was going to do my best and followed what the coach told me.”

China’s individual world champions Bowen Zhang and Jiang Ranxin claimed bronze by beating Iran’s Sajad Poorhooseini and Haniyeh Rostamiyan 17-7.

Huang Yuting and Sheng Lihao took the world title in the mixed team 10m air rifle event by the convincing margin of 16-2 over Iran’s Amir Mohammad Nekounam and  Shermineh Chehel Amirani.

Huang and Sheng were always in control of the competition but this was the first competition for Nekounam and Amirani who had only been together as a pair for just over three months.

France took the bronze as Romain Oaufraire and Oceanne Muller defeated the Israeli pairing of Olgar Tasgtchiev and Sergey Richter by 17 points to 9.

The third of the mixed events that will be contested at the Paris 2024 Olympics – in the skeet discipline – was won for the United States by three-times Olympic individual champion Vincent Hancock in company with 22-year-old Austen Smith, who was the youngest on the team for the Tokyo 2020 Games.

Silver went to Ukraine’s Mikola Milchev and Iryna Malovichko, with bronze going to the British pairing of Ben Llewellin and Amber Rutter.

India won in the 10m air pistol at two of the six ISSF World Cups involving mixed team competition with two other pairs.

Rhythm Sangwan and Varun Tomar were triumphant in Cairo, and Sarabjot Singh and Divya Thadigol Subbarju earned gold in Baku.

The Indonesian pair of Arista Putri Darmoyo and Muhamad Iqbal Parbowa secured a home victory in the opening World Cup of the season in Jakarta.

China’s Wei Qian and 2022 men’s world individual champion Jinyao Liu won in Bhopal.

Serbia’s pairing of 36-year-old Zorana Arunovic, the 2010 women’s individual world champion, and Tokyo 2020 men’s silver medallist Damir Mikec secured the other two World Cup titles – in Lima and Rio de Janeiro.