India won bronze in the women’s skeet team event at the Asian Games 2026 on September 23, their 7th shooting medal of the Games, with Raiza Dhillon, Parinaaz Dhaliwal and Maheshwari Chauhan combining for 331 points.
What stands out about India’s shooting medals this Games is not any single result but the spread across disciplines: air rifle medals earlier in the week, now a skeet medal, each involving a different set of athletes.
A medal count built across multiple events and multiple athletes is a different kind of achievement from one built around a single star performer, since it reflects depth in selection and training rather than one athlete carrying the team.
Skeet shooting itself is a less familiar discipline to a general audience than air rifle or pistol events, so a medal here also signals that India’s competitive base is broadening into events that have historically produced fewer medals for the country.
For a sport where a country’s standing is often judged by total medal count, the more durable indicator is whether new disciplines keep contributing, since that suggests the next Games are less dependent on any one shooter staying in form.
India’s shooters had already won medals earlier in the Games in the men’s and women’s 10m air rifle events.
Himanshu Dhillon, Rudrankksh Patil and Parth Mane won team silver in the men’s 10m air rifle, with Dhillon and Patil adding individual medals.
Elavenil Valarivan and India’s women’s 10m air rifle team won silver medals on the opening day of shooting competition.
India’s shooting squad has performed consistently across recent multi-sport events, including previous Asian Games and the Olympics.
The Asian Games 2026 are being held in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, from September 19 to October 4.
Skeet shooting involves competitors shooting at clay targets launched from two trap houses at varying angles.
Sport shooting (representative image), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0