Asian Games 2026: Wait for gold continues as Indian shooters misfire

From left, India’s Mairaj Ahmad Khan, Anantjeet Singh Naruka and Bhavtegh Singh Gill pose for photographs after winning bronze in the Skeet Men Team Final event, during the 20th Asian Games, in Nagoya. | Photo Credit: RV Moorthy

The Aichi General Shooting Range continued to reward Indian shooters with medals on Wednesday, just not the colour they desperately want; or the events that they expected to.

The men’s and women’s skeet teams both finished third for a bronze while two of the three shooters in the final fell agonisingly short of a medal, Anantjeet Singh Naruka and Raiza Dhillon finishing fourth. Parinaaz Dhaliwal finished eighth in the individual event as India’s wait for a shooting gold continues.

The shotgun arena made up for the disaster inside the firing range where Esha Singh and Suruchi Phogat had forgettable outings in the qualifying and failed to make the cut for the final while Manu Bhaker bowed out fifth in the 10m air pistol, an event the three of them have been dominating, specially the first two, in the past one year.

READ | India coach Ronak Pandit: ‘This performance is unpardonable’ after 10m air pistol disappointment

Naruka, the silver medalist from Hangzhou, missed two of his first four shots and despite trying his best, was unable to overturn the deficit. In a field where the smallest of margins meant survival or elimination, it was not so much Naruka misfiring as his competitors not faltering, scoring 25 out of 28 shots, one behind bronze medalist Lee Meng-Yuan of Taiwan. Among the women, Raiza ended with 23 out of 28 while Parinaaz was the first to be eliminated.

Earlier, the men – Mairaj Ahmed Khan and Bhavtegh Gill along with Naruka -- totalled 346 over three days of qualifying rounds to finish behind Qatar (353) and Kuwait (348). The women’s trio of Raiza, Parinaaz and Maheshwari Chauhan totalled 331 in the qualifying to finish third behind China (357) and Kazakhstan (336) for the first-ever Asian Games medal in women’s skeet.

“It’s a great feeling knowing that (we are the first) but I think the girls were in great form and I am really hoping we will go with a few more medals, a little disappointed it not being a better colour. I think it’s just a stepping stone for better podium finishes,” Maheshwari said on the historic medal.

“I genuinely feel the reason (for shotgun taking a backseat) is because we just didn’t have high performing athletes and enough female athletes to begin with. The shotgun crowd today is much younger and at a much higher technical quality and level, I do feel you are gonna see a lot more of shot gun doing better overall,” she added.

In pistol, Manu finished her qualifying round with a score of 579 in third position while Esha began with series of 94 and 93 before slowly picking up pace but a 95 and 96 in the last four series was never going to be enough, finishing with 572 points with 12x. Suruchi, meanwhile, had three series of 94 each and one of 93 for a total of 568 with 12x to finish 26th.

In the final, Manu never really got going, starting with a 9.9 and ending with a 9.6 and just two 10.8s throughout her series of 18 shots. The biggest setback was an 8.9 on her eighth shot, which pushed her down into elimination zone and although she kept surviving, it was a matter of evading the inevitable.