India’s Anantjeet Singh Naruka and Parinaaz Dhaliwal won the bronze medal in the skeet mixed team shooting event at the Asian Games 2026 at the Aichi Prefectural General Shooting Gallery on Thursday.
The Indian pair hit 44 of 48 targets in the final and were level with the Republic of Korea at the point of elimination but settled for bronze on account of their lower qualification ranking.
The People’s Republic of China went on to win gold with a world record score of 52, while South Korea took silver with 51.
It was a second bronze medal of the Games for both Anantjeet and Parinaaz. Anantjeet had helped India to the men’s skeet team bronze on Wednesday while Parinaaz was part of the women’s team that also finished third.
The mixed skeet bronze took India’s shooting tally at the Asian Games 2026 to eight medals – four silver and four bronze.
The pair had only just made the four-team final after finishing fourth in qualification with 138 hits, behind Qatar (145), South Korea (143) and China (140). Kuwait were fifth with 137 hits.
India opened the final with seven hits from eight and remained third after 16 shots with 14, two behind leaders China.
Anantjeet and Parinaaz stayed within touching distance throughout. They were only one hit off the leaders after 32 shots, with China and South Korea tied on 30 and India on 29.
The Indians trailed the top two teams by two hits after 40 shots but produced a perfect eight from eight in their next series to draw level with South Korea on 44.
With India and South Korea tied at the elimination stage, the Koreans progressed on account of their higher qualification position, leaving Anantjeet and Parinaaz with bronze.
Anantjeet had partnered Maheshwari Chauhan at Paris 2024, where the Indians finished fourth after losing the bronze medal contest to China 44-43.
Anantjeet had also finished fourth in the men’s individual skeet final at Aichi-Nagoya on Wednesday, while Parinaaz placed eighth in the women’s final.
Earlier on Thursday, India missed out on a medal in the men’s 10m air pistol team event.
Kamaljeet, Aakash Bharadwaj and Kedarling Balakrishna Uchaganve combined for 1727-53x to finish fourth. China won gold with 1743-70x.
None of the three Indians progressed to the individual final. Kamaljeet was the highest-placed Indian in ninth, Aakash finished 11th, while Kedarling was 35th.
READ MORE: https://www.olympics.com/en/news/asian-games-2026-shooting-india-skeet-mixed-team-bronze-medal
