"VAN" (Sports Desk - 08.12.2025) :: India's Simranpreet Kaur Brar recovered from a slow start to win the women's 25m pistol at the 2025 ISSF World Cup Final in Doha, Qatar, equalling the junior world record.
Yao Qianxun of China and Germany's Doreen Vennekamp completed the podium in an exciting contest for the medals.
Qualification
As expected, the Republic of Korea, China and India dominated qualification, with Olympic champion Yang Ji-in clear at the top by five with a total of 593, followed by China's Yao Qianxun and Yang's compatriot Oh Ye-jin on 588.
Esha Singh led her Indian teammate Simranpreet Kaur Brar on 585 and 584, with Germany's Doreen Vennekamp tied with the latter. Chinese pair Feng Sixuan and Sun Yujie completed the top eight on 583 and 581.
Sun would pip India's Manu Bhaker on precision, hitting the X on 25 occasions to Bhaker's 22. Haniyeh Rostamiyan of Iran was 10th, followed by Qatar's Duaa Rahmatalla M Habib and Salma Abbas F Almass in 11th and 12th.
The Final
The usual suspects started the final well, with Oh Ye-jin scoring nine of her first 10, followed by a group of four athletes on eight - Yao Qianxun, Doreen Vennekamp, Yang Ji-in and three-time World Cup winner in 2025, Sun Yujie.
Esha Singh had scored a perfect five in the first series, but missed three in the next, moving onto seven. Her teammate had the opposite fate. Simranpreet Kaur Brar scored just twice in her opening five, but scored four in the next to move onto six. China's Feng Sixuan, the ISSF World Cup Final champion in Doha two years ago, struggled, missing four on her second series - which she would repeat in the next two. She exited first in eighth with six from 20.
Those next 10 shots saw Yao produce two perfect series and score 14 in a row, moving her into the lead on 18. Vennekamp, the only European in the final, missed just once to put her on 17, while two misses from Oh in the fourth series put her on 16. Brar was now on 15, scoring nine times in a row at this stage, tied with Yang who missed twice at the end of that first elimination series.
A triple miss put Sun in peril, while Singh would eventually finish seventh, having struggled to find the form that she had at the start of the final. Series five saw Brar score another four, 14 consecutive shots in a row to move onto 19 alongside Oh, while Vennekamp took the lead with four from five, as Yao missed thrice, going one behind on 20.
Effectively in a shoot-off for sixth, the next series was important for the Olympic and world champion Yang who missed once to remain in the competition, meaning Sun's two misses would see her end in sixth position.
Great Consistency Leads Brar to the Gold
While Yang held off Sun, Brar was looking brilliant at the top, moving joint-top with Vennekamp on 24 after a perfect series of five shots. The German's two misses were not as costly as it could have been, as Yao missed three times again and Oh missed twice. The pair were now two behind on 22, with Yang on 21.
The Indian would take the lead outright for the first time in the seventh series, scoring four to move onto 28. Three misses for Vennekamp brought her back to Oh, level on 26. Two more misses meant Yao was now in fourth on 25. Importantly for her, Yang would miss twice too, meaning the Korean would finish fifth.
Brar created more breathing room in series eight with another score of four, only matched by Yao who moved three behind on 29 along with Vennekamp, who scored three. For Oh, three consecutive misses meant she would miss out in fourth place.
After just four misses from her first 25, Vennekamp found it tough over the next four series. When tied with Yao, determining who would be in the top two, she missed four times, meaning she took the bronze, with nine targets hit from her last 20 shots.
Up front, Simranpreet Kaur Brar pulled ahead even more. Another four to Yao's three saw her lead by four. She finished in style, with a perfect series to equal the junior world record of 41, beating one of the best athletes this season, Yao Qianxun, on 36. After making her ISSF World Cup Final debut last year in New Delhi, she stood on the podium for the first time - and in the top spot. It would be silver for Yao on her debut and Vennekamp's second World Cup Final medal.
What the Athletes Had to Say
Simranpreet Kaur Brar: "I'm feeling great after winning the medal and it's a great feeling for me that I improved my technique and focused on how to execute the shot rather than focusing on the screen.
"I was calm, but inside there was nervousness in the finals and I executed it properly."
Yao Qianxun: "At this World Cup Final, I had no 25m pistol training because I was focusing on the 10m air pistol. I will now focus on the training and start over for next year. The achievements belong to the past and the future, I will still try to do my best."
Doreen Vennekamp: "I'm feeling really good. It was not the best year compared to last time, so I'm really happy to be here, I really love the shooting range and now to get a medal again is a pleasure. The start was really good, and at the end, they all continued and they were amazing. It was the first time I've had an after-Olympic year, so I tried a new weapon and new ammunition and we tried to do everything possible for LA to be perfect.
"If you change a lot, it doesn't give you a lot of self-confidence. I had a lot of fifth places this year and I was thinking there was no medal coming and if I did something wrong. Now that I have the medal, it's been a while and I'm really happy this season ends this year."
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