Nagoya, Sep 23 (SocialNews.XYZ) Indian shooters continued to add medals to the country's tally at the Asian Games 2026, bagging bronze medals in the men's and women's skeet team competition on Wednesday.
India's men's skeet team of Anantjeet Singh Naruka, Mairaj Ahmed Khan, and Bhavtegh Singh Gill won bronze, finishing level with Kazakhstan on 346 points before prevailing in a tense shoot-off to claim the medal.
Earlier in the day, the trio of Parinaaz Dhaliwal, Razia Dhillon, and Maheshwari Chauhan won a bronze medal in the women's skeet team event.
Naruka led the Indian effort in qualification with 119 out of a possible 125, with Mairaj Ahmed Khan adding 116 and Bhavtegh Singh Gill contributing 111 to the team's combined total. With Kazakhstan matching India's tally, the bronze medal came down to a shoot-off, which the Indian trio won to secure the podium finish.
The result marked India's second shooting bronze of the day, following the women's skeet team medal earlier in the session, and extended the country's strong run in the discipline through the Games.
Naruka's individual qualification form also carried him into the men's skeet individual final, where he narrowly missed out on a second medal of the day. Qatar's Al-Athba took gold with an Asian Record of 34, ahead of China's Lyu Jianlin on 33 for silver, while Chinese Taipei's Lee claimed bronze with 29.
Naruka finished fourth on 25/28, agonisingly falling a single point short of the podium — a heartbreaking end to what had otherwise been a standout day for the Indian skeet shooters.
In the women's skeet competition, after three days of qualification rounds, Parinaaz, Raiza, and Maheshwari shot a total of 331 in the qualification to finish third on the podium behind the Chinese team of Che Yufei, Jian Yiting, and Jiang Chaoyu, who took gold with 347, and Kazakhstan (Assem Orynbay, Zoya Piskun, and Adel Sadakbayeva), who pocketed silver with 336.
Later, double Olympic medallist shooter Manu Bhaker suffered heartbreak as she fell short of a podium spot in the women's 10m air pistol individual event, finishing fifth in the final.
South Korea's Gaeun Choo bagged the gold with an Asian record and Games record score of 246.3, while China's Yiyao Shen (241.3) and Ranxin Jiang (221.6) rounded off the podium with silver and bronze, respectively.
Manu, who entered the individual final after finishing third in qualification with a score of 579, which included 20 inner 10s, shot 181.1 in the eight-women final as India drew blank in the women's 10m Air pistol event after missing the team medal by the barest of margins.
Manu will now shift her focus to the 25m pistol event, joining Esha and 2018 Asian Games champion Rahi Sarnobat.
India finished fourth in the team event with an aggregate score of 1719-44x while Vietnam bagged the bronze with 1719-46x. China took the gold with 1735-56x while South Korea bagged silver with 1730-55x.
With the skeet women's team bronze, India's medal tally in shooting events rose to six, including four silver and two bronze. At the previous edition of the Asian Games, held in Hangzhou, India claimed seven golds, nine silvers and six bronze medals for an unprecedented haul of 22 medals.
Source: IANS
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