Esha’s silver follows mother’s timely rebuke

NAGOYA: A timely scolding from her mother helped Esha Singh shake off a sleepless night as she battled through a gruelling women's 25m pistol final at the Asian Games on Monday to clinch a silver medal here.

The 21-year-old, who won four medals in the previous edition, endured a nerve-wracking contest that tested her physical and mental resilience.

"I had a lot of pressure… I am not going to lie. I also had trouble sleeping. I think a conversation with my mom really changed things. Last night, I had a call with her and she started kind of yelling at me, basically asking why I was taking so much stress," Esha said

"She reminded me to just enjoy it. Not everybody gets this opportunity. I think I needed that scolding. I was looking for sympathy and got a lecture. She basically told me to shut up and sleep."

The advice appeared to pay off as Esha showed remarkable resilience in a marathon final, repeatedly fighting her way back to stay in contention despite coming perilously close to elimination.

Having taken the lead early, she struggled to find the rhythm she wanted as the contest wore on, but refused to let the mounting pressure unsettle her.

"I am very aware that when you are playing, it is a very distracting thought that you could go out any second. I was leading in the beginning, but things were not working out the way I wanted them to. I still kept my focus… still knew I could do it and fought till the last. I tried my best," she said.

The relentless shoot-offs took a physical toll, with her shooting hand growing increasingly tight and fatigued. Esha repeatedly shook her hand and moved her wrist to ease the discomfort, but remained determined to fight for gold.

"My hand did end up getting a little tired because nobody who went up for the gold shot as much as I did. The pressure made my hand genuinely very tight and tired, even in the first series. I was just trying to release and relax it a bit," she said.

In an unusual twist, a couple of errors by the judges gave her brief intervals to recover, providing some much-needed respite in an otherwise relentless final.

"I was kind of grateful for the errors and mistakes the judges were making because I got some rest. Maybe you can call it God's grace, giving me some time off to think about it. It looked like a situation where the zone was breaking for an athlete, but in my case, it really helped me," she said.

For Esha, the silver was also a measure of how far she had come since the Paris Olympics, where she had struggled to produce her best under pressure.

She felt better equipped this time to handle the challenge.

Her qualification for the final had been far from convincing, with an eighth-place finish securing her passage. Though unhappy with her performance, she drew confidence from her ability to recover across the qualification stages and carry that belief into the final.

"I think this kind of pressure I had not experienced before. It was, I would say, on an Olympic level. That is why I really liked this experience because I got to relive that moment and do things which I could not do back then. I genuinely feel stronger now," she said.

The final also brought back memories of her Olympic campaign, when her duelling had gone awry. This time, however, she managed to fight through similar difficulties and emerge with renewed belief in her ability to handle pressure.

"The last series made me realise that I am strong enough to handle this," she said.

Esha also credited her coach for helping her recover mentally after the disappointment of the 10m air pistol event, in which she had failed to meet expectations. She recalled how the atmosphere around her had changed, leaving her feeling that her worth was being measured solely by medals.

"I just told myself that I don't owe anybody anything. I don't play for anybody. I chose the sport because I love it, because I have a passion for it. I don't play for an audience or a team," she said.

Esha acknowledged that past achievements could weigh heavily on an athlete, but said the experience had helped her grow stronger.

"As the prestige grows, the weight also grows on you. But I think all this is trying to make me strong, and I am just embracing the experience," she said.

Despite missing out on gold after an exhausting contest, Esha was pleased with her performance and the experience of navigating a final unlike any she had encountered before.

"I have never had an experience like this before. It is definitely going into my bucket of amazing experiences. I am grateful for every moment. Though it was nerve-wracking, it was amazing," she said.