A Last-Minute Pairing Wins India Mixed Pistol Gold

Suruchi Singh and Kamaljeet won India’s second gold of the 2026 Asian Games on September 25, scoring 484.6 in the 10m air pistol mixed team final. The National Rifle Association of India had put them together after Thursday’s individual qualifying, replacing Suruchi’s original partner.

They beat South Korea by 6.6 points at the Aichi Prefectural Shooting Gallery in Nagoya and gave India its first shooting gold of these Games, after the women’s cricket title on September 22. The rest of Friday still ran on silver, bronze promises and first-round shocks.

After Thursday, NRAI Changed Suruchi’s Partner

Kedarling Balakrishna Uchaganve had been named to shoot the mixed event with Suruchi. After the men’s 10m air pistol qualifying on Thursday, NRAI moved him out and brought Kamaljeet in.

Kamaljeet had been India’s best man in that round and still missed the individual final. Suruchi had already gone out of the women’s field. The mixed final was the last 10m air pistol medal left on the programme.

THE SWAP, IN NUMBERS

• Kamaljeet: He shot 580, finished ninth, and missed the men’s final by one point.
• Kedarling: He shot 568, finished 35th, and was 12 points behind Kamaljeet.
• Suruchi Singh: She finished 26th in the women’s qualifying and did not reach the individual final.
• The last chance: India had no 10m air pistol medal yet, after Manu Bhaker missed the women’s podium and both team events drew blanks.

Hangzhou had given India gold in the men’s 10m air pistol team and gold and silver in the women’s individual. This pairing did not exist until that Thursday round was in the book, and it was asked to repair all of that in one start.

484.6 Points Put India 6.6 Clear of South Korea

They topped qualifying with 587, including 29 inner 10s, in series of 196, 195 and 196. That score matched the Asian qualifying record. In the four-team final they led from the first series and were never caught.

MIXED 10M AIR PISTOL FINAL

They opened on 103.0, reached 202.4 and 303.5 by the end of stage 1, then 364.7 and 424.9 in stage 2. Indonesia went out first. Iran were locked on bronze. South Korea closed late, but the gap at the finish was still 6.6. The winning score sat 3.8 points short of the world record and beat Uzbekistan’s 481.3 Asian record, set by Mukhammad Kamalov and Nigina Saidkulova at the Asian Shooting Championships in New Delhi earlier in 2026.

A golden finish for Kamaljeet and Suruchi Inder Singh!

Droupadi Murmu, President of India, on X

The Indian Olympic Association’s Team India account posted the same result with the Asian record attached.

Gold Medal ✔️
Asian Record ✔️

A fantastic performance from Suruchi and Kamaljeet in the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team Event. A dominating final win to claim the top spot 👏👏

Let’s #Cheer4Bharat #WeAreTeamIndia | #JeetHamariHai pic.twitter.com/qeUj5XY7cO

— Team India (@WeAreTeamIndia) September 25, 2026

In Hangzhou, Sarabjot Singh and Divya T. S. had taken mixed 10m air pistol silver behind China. This time the gold came from a pair NRAI assembled after both had already missed their singles.

A Four-Point Gap Left India With Silver

The same morning, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar (589), Niraj Kumar (588) and Rudrankksh Patil (585) put up 1762 in the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions team event. China scored 1766, with Zhang Changhong’s 593 a qualifying Games record, and took gold by four points. Liu Yukun shot 588 and Sheng Lihao 585. Only two shooters per nation go through to the individual final, so Patil, ninth on 585, stayed out.

Tomar sat third after 10 kneeling shots on 102.9, then slipped through the prone series. He finished fifth on 327.6. Niraj went out eighth. Liu Yukun won gold with a 10.7 on the last shot against Zhang’s 9.7 and a Games record of 360.5, a 0.7-point title. The team silver was India’s eighth silver of the Games. The individual final added nothing.

Both Kabaddi Teams Reach Saturday’s Gold Matches

While the range was sorting gold and silver, both kabaddi sides booked gold-medal matches for September 26, the same double India completed in Hangzhou.

The women beat Nepal 48-24 in the semifinal after leading 31-17 at half-time. Nepal started well; Sanju Devi and Sonali then pulled the score away. India will meet Chinese Taipei or Iran in the final.

The men beat Thailand 66-27 and will defend their title against Iran or Chinese Taipei. Those two matches are already worth a silver each. In Hangzhou both Indian sides took gold, the men over Iran and the women over Chinese Taipei.

What Anahat Singh Did in a 15-Minute Quarterfinal

Anahat Singh, 18, beat compatriot Tanvi Khanna, 30, 3-0 (11-2, 11-5, 11-3) in 15 minutes and reached the women’s singles semifinal. She plays Japan’s Satomi Watanabe, world No. 6 and a Hangzhou bronze medallist, on September 26. The singles champions at these Games each earn a direct quota for LA 2028, when squash enters the Olympics, subject to the qualifying rules.

Abhay Singh, the men’s second seed, beat Japan’s Ryunosuke Tsukue 3-0 (11-4, 11-3, 11-6) in 30 minutes. An all-Indian semifinal died when Pakistan’s Muhammad Irfan beat Veer Chotrani 3-1 (11-6, 8-11, 3-11, 3-11). Irfan plays Abhay in the last four on September 26 at 11:15 a.m. IST.

INDIANS STILL IN SQUASH MEDAL ROUNDS

• Women’s singles: Anahat Singh plays Watanabe in the semifinal after the all-Indian quarterfinal.
• Men’s singles: Abhay Singh plays Irfan after Chotrani’s quarterfinal exit.
• Mixed doubles: Joshana Chinappa and Velavan Senthilkumar reached the semifinals by beating the Philippines’ David Pelino and Jemyca Aribado, so a medal is already assured.

India won five squash medals in Hangzhou, including two golds. Harinder Pal Sandhu, a Hangzhou mixed-doubles champion, is coaching this squad of eight at Nagoya Kinjo-Futo Arena.

Thailand Ends India’s Hangzhou Doubles Defence

Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, the defending men’s doubles champions, went out in the opening round at Ichinomiya City Municipal Gymnasium. They beat Thailand’s Pakkapon Teeraratsakul and Peeratchai Sukphun 21-12 in game one, then lost 19-21, 14-21. The Thai pair is ranked 33rd in the world. Satwik and Chirag already have a men’s team bronze from these Games.

Table tennis mixed doubles is on the medal board after Diya Chitale and Manush Shah reached the semifinals. The women’s doubles ended in the pre-quarterfinals, Sreeja Akula and Syndrela Das going down 0-3 to China’s Kuai Man and Wang Manyu, then Yashaswini Ghorpade and Diya Chitale losing to Fan Shuhan and Chen Yi. Harmeet Desai and G Sathiyan lost 0-3 to Japan’s Sora Matsushima and Shunsuke Togami in men’s doubles. Sreeja and Manav Thakkar both went out in singles round 2 to North Korea.

The women’s hockey team beat hosts Japan 3-1 for a fourth win in four Pool B matches and a semifinal place. Lalremsiami scored in the first quarter, Ishika made it 2-0 before half-time, and Navneet Kaur scooped the third. Shiho Kobayakawa pulled one back in the last quarter. India still have Singapore in the pool.

Rishabh Das finished sixth in the men’s 200m backstroke final in 1:58.77, and Utkarsh Patil seventh in 2:00.94. Sajan Prakash reached the 200m butterfly final. That was the swimming return from a morning in which three Indians had made finals and three others had not. Friday’s full Nagoya programme also ran fencing, canoe sprint, boxing and weightlifting alongside the medal sports that actually moved the tally.

Shooting Has 10 of India’s 19 Medals

India’s tally after the two range medals on September 25 is 2 gold, 8 silver and 9 bronze, 19 medals, 12th behind Malaysia and ahead of Kuwait. China lead on 85 gold. Hosts Japan have 21. The Indian Olympic Association lists the 20th Asian Games across 46 nations and 43 sports, with 469 gold medal events through October 4.

INDIA BY SPORT AFTER SEPTEMBER 25

Those 19 medals across nine sports already include mixed 4x400m silver and mixed skeet bronze, and shooting still supplies 10 of the 19. About 500 Indian athletes are in Japan. Hangzhou ended with 28 gold and 106 medals, 22 of them in shooting, including seven golds.

The women’s cricket team had been the only gold until Friday, beating Sri Lanka by 147 runs on September 22. Kabaddi’s two finals on September 26 can add two more medals before the squash singles and mixed doubles are done. The gold that actually arrived on September 25 came from a pair NRAI built after Thursday’s scores, not from the names that started the week on the pistol entry list.