Sporting Pistol, 25 metres, Women

The 25 m sporting pistol event saw a record number of participants in this event at the Olympics with 44 shooters. The field included all three medallists from the 2018 World Shooting Championships with Olena Kostevych (gold), Vitalina Batsarashkina (silver), and Doreen Vennekamp (bronze). Also present in Tokyo were the three Rio medallists – Anna Korakaki, Monika Karsch and Heidi Diethelm Gerber. Batsarashkina (gold) and Antoaneta Kostadinova (silver) won medals in the air pistol event a few days earlier. For the first time in Olympic history this event was held over two days, with the first part of the qualification round, the precision, held in the morning of the first day and the second part, the rapid, held 24 hours later, followed by the final in the afternoon.

The qualification round was won by Kostadinova with a clear margin of three points from Xiao Jiaruixuan. The next eight shooters were separated by just three points, with five shooters scoring 584. Their tie was broken by the most inner 10s, which qualified Kim Min-Jeong for the last spot in the final while Zorana Arunović was eliminated with only one inner 10 less.

In the final Kostadinova started poorly by missing all five targets in the first round but she fought back, only to finish an unlucky fourth after losing the shoot-off for bronze against Xiao. Both Kostadinova and Xiao had eliminated Wu Chia-Ying in a three-way shoot-off one round earlier. After 40 shots and winning two shoot-offs Xiao secured bronze. As the two remaining competitors Batsarashkina and Kim also tied after 50 shots, gold was also determined in a shoot-off, which was won by Batsarashkina 4-1. Batsarashkina won her second gold medal in Tokyo after having also won the 10 m air pistol, and followed Yang Qian as the second shooter to win two gold medals at these Games, but with her silver medal from the 10 m air pistol mixed team event, Batsarashkina became the most decorated shooter in Tokyo.