India win first mixed skeet team medal, Naruka closes old gap

If anything, that shared near-miss became fuel. “I think not winning an individual medal worked as a push for both of us, and we were motivated that we are not going without a medal in the mixed skeet event,” Dhaliwal told The Indian Express from Japan. “We had a bad start in the qualification since the range here is a bit tricky with the angles of the target coming a bit odd. We went with the idea that we have to fight till the very end in qualification, and that’s what we did, and then won the bronze medal in the final.”

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐌𝐄𝐃𝐀𝐋 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐀 🥉

Parinaaz Dhaliwal and Anantjeet Singh Naruka claim bronze in Mixed Team Skeet!

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They’d shot a combined 138 in qualification, edging Egypt for the fourth and final spot behind Qatar, Korea and China. In the final, against a field that included Paris Olympics bronze medallists Lyu Jianlin and Jiang Yiting of China, Hangzhou bronze medallists Rashid Saleh Al-Athba (also Wednesday’s individual champion) and Reem Ghanem Al-Sharshani of Qatar, and Korea’s Lee Jongjun and Jang Kookhee, India opened with a score of 21, Naruka missing one of his 12 targets, Dhaliwal missing two. Qatar missed four that round, China led with 23, Korea sat at 22. A medal, by that point, already looked secure.

India’s Parinaaz Dhaliwal, left, and Anant Jeet Singh Naruka compete in the Skeet Mixed Team qualification during the 20th Asian Games, in Nagoya, Japan, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026. (PTI Photo)

The second round tightened things to a single shot. Naruka missed once more, Dhaliwal hit all 12, and India finished level with Korea on 44 points. But qualification scores decide the tie, and Korea had gone in ranked higher. Silver went to Korea. India settled for bronze, China taking gold.

Dhaliwal doesn’t see the partnership itself as the reason it worked. “We did train together, but then skeet is mostly an individual sport,” she said. “The mindset was to shoot your shot and focus on your technique and leave the team-mate shot to him and not to worry about their shooting. Also it does not matter against whom we are competing, and that was the mindset today also in the final.” She’s been splitting her training between India’s foreign coach Riccardo Filippelli and her personal coach in France, Beijing Olympics bronze medallist Anthony Terras, who travelled to Japan to work with her here.

Mixed team skeet won’t feature in the next Olympic cycle, with trap mixed team taking its place in Los Angeles, but Filippelli thinks the medal still matters for what it tells the team about itself. “Except for the first round in qualification, both of them shot very well,” he said. “They held their composure too in the final, and if not the lower qualification rank, they would have won the silver. The Chinese team was definitely stronger than us, but we are catching up. The challenge is always the same, not to make mistakes and never give up.”