Asian Shooting C'ships 2026: Rudrankksh Patil wins men's air rifle gold

Rudrankksh Patil and Arjun Babuta completed a 1-2 finish for India to secure the gold and silver medals, respectively, in the 10m Air Rifle Men’s event at the Asian Rifle/Pistol Championship on Friday.

Meanwhile, Himanshu Dhillon, Ansh Dabas and Naren Pranav V.S swept the podium in the Junior Men’s air rifle event to continue India’s dominance at home.

The mixed team pairs of Mukesh Nelavalli and Vanshika Chaudhary and Girish Gupta and Shiksha Saran secured gold in the 10m Air Pistol junior and youth mixed team events, respectively, to start India's medal haul earlier in the day.

Rudrankksh and Arjun started their finals slowly and were placed outside the medal places after the first series of shots.

Rudrankksh got hold of momentum from the second series and took the lead in the 16th shot, maintaining it to the end to secure his first-ever Asian Championship medal.

Arjun also climbed to the second spot at the end of the 16th shot. Both Indians maintained their positions on top from then on, with Rudrankksh finishing with a final score of 251.9 - 1.2 points more than Arjun, who finished on 250.7.

Japan’s Naoya Okada, who was leading the field until the 16th shot, took bronze with a score of 229.3.

The other Indian in the final, Vishal Singh, finished fifth but took the team gold along with Rudrankksh and Arjun with a combined score of 1884.7. Kazakhstan won the team silver with a combined score of 1879.4, while Japan won bronze with a score of 1877.2.

In the Junior Men’s final, senior and junior national record holder Himanshu Dhillon maintained his lead from the first series till the end to clinch the gold medal.

Ansh Dabas started to hit high scores after the second series to gradually move into the second spot, while Naraen Pranav hit three 10.8’s towards his final shots to secure the bronze medal, ensuring India cleaned up the podium. Himanshu, Naraen and Abhinav Shaw also ensured India won the team gold with a combined score of 1887.8.

Bhanu Pratap Singh Choudhary added a silver for the hosts in the Youth category, finishing the final with a score of 247.2. Indonesia’s Pramudio Mudiono clinched the gold with a score of 248.4 while his teammate Anang Febrian secured the bronze medal.

Bhanu Pratap, along with Anshul Batra and Yash Pandey, won India the team gold while Kazakhstan and the Maldives won the silver and bronze, respectively.

Earlier in the day, Mukesh Nelavalli and Vanshika Chaudhary came from behind in the air pistol junior mixed team finalsto clinch the gold with a combined score of 481.1.

This was in the end, 4.2 points ahead of the Indonesians, who finished on 476.9 to win the silver medal. Assylym Zhakiya and Tamerlan Yerdembek of Kazakhstan won the bronze medal.

In the youth mixed team finals, Shiksha Saran and Girish Gupta dominated the finals to win gold ahead of Shirinbibi Rajabova and Khaydarali Sattorov of Tajikistan, who won silver and Shakizada Mazova and Matvey Tikhonov of Kazakhstan, who won bronze.

The medals of 10m Air Rifle Women will be decided tomorrow, along with 50m pistol men and junior men.