India’s shooting contingent added another glittering chapter to its Asian Games 2026 campaign as the duo of Anantjeet Singh Naruka and Parinaaz Dhaliwal held their nerve under intense pressure to win a dramatic bronze medal in the skeet mixed-team event on Thursday.
Finishing third with an aggregate score of 44 in the final, the Indian pair secured India’s first-ever Asian Games medal in this specific event since its debut in 2023, expanding the country’s shooting haul to eight medals at the ongoing Games.
A Steady Climb to the Podium
The journey to the podium required relentless focus. Having squeezed into the final round by securing the sixth and final available spot with a qualification score of 138, Naruka and Dhaliwal needed a strong performance to challenge the top teams.
They delivered precisely that, demonstrating remarkable consistency across all six series of the final round. Moving steadily through the sequence—scoring 7 in the opening series before climbing to 14, 21, 29, 36, and finally 44—the Indian duo matched South Korea’s score to set up a tense dynamic at the top end of the leaderboard.
China dominated the final to take the gold medal with a world-record score of 52 points, while South Korea bagged silver with 51. Under tournament tie-breaker regulations involving qualification rankings, South Korea (which had qualified second with 143 points) remained in silver position, while India’s fifth-place qualification rank placed them securely with the bronze medal, comfortably ahead of fourth-placed Qatar.
Redemption for the Indian Marksmen
For both Naruka and Dhaliwal, the mixed-team success served as a rewarding redemption after heartbreaking narrow misses in their respective individual events earlier in the week. Naruka had come close to an individual podium finish after placing fourth in the men’s individual skeet, while Dhaliwal delivered a solid eighth-place finish in the women’s individual event.
Both shooters had already claimed silverware in Aichi-Nagoya, having anchored their respective men’s and women’s teams to bronze medal victories at the Aichi Prefectural General Shooting Gallery on Wednesday.
Combining their strengths in the mixed-team format, Naruka and Dhaliwal demonstrated tactical synergy and mental composure, ensuring that Indian skeet shooting finishes its Asian Games 2026 outing on a memorable high.
