4 min readFeb 5, 2026 09:57 PM IST
First published on: Feb 5, 2026 at 09:23 PM IST
Usually when one tops the qualification stage of a mixed team event in shooting, there is an instant injection of dopamine. A first or second position in qualification means a guaranteed gold or silver medal – at least that’s what Indian shooting’s newest senior team pair of Suruchi Phogat and Samrat Rana thought.
But as they entered the final hall at the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range for the 10m air pistol final, the range officer explained the new format of the event to them, and suddenly both shooters, aged 19 and 21 respectively and beginning their second year with the senior team, were dealt a shock. The event was no longer a playoff versus another team, but a final featuring four teams with an initial stage of fifteen shots, followed by elimination. Forget gold or silver, there was now a possibility of no medal at all in the first international event with the new rules in place.
But Phogat and Rana got their thoughts in gear and managed an Asian Championship silver medal on Thursday. And despite that mixed-team medal, both are enduring a mini-storm of sorts.
Phogat, who spent 2025 winning three of the four ISSF World Cups before finishing 12th at the World Championships, admitted that they were taken aback.
“When you are in a playoff for the gold medal, you’re not very scared. But here suddenly I felt like ‘Yeh kya ho gaya’,” she said.
There is a reason for that apprehension. The 19-year-old got into the spotlight by winning three World Cups. But then she faltered at the World Championship.
“When we are winning, it’s easy to not care about your technique. But when results start getting up and down, you have to go through everything that you do and find out what’s going wrong,” Phogat said after Thursday’s medal ceremony.
Great expectations
Other than the World Championships, Phogat won a gold at the World Cup finals as well, and also shot down a junior World record. Hardly sounds like someone going through a bumpy phase in her career, but she has high expectations of herself.
She has no personal coach at present. When she is not training under the national team coaches, her father takes charge.
Her partner Rana, too, is an outlier. He had previously claimed that his father coached him to a World Championship gold medal – only the third won by an Indian after Abhinav Bindra and Rudrankksh Patil.
“He learnt how to shoot by practising at targets in the village,” says Rana. “But because he lived in a village, he never got proper guidance. He didn’t want the same to happen with me.”
The youngster from Karnal, with no friends or family in the stands, would take aim among the eight shooters on the lane and routinely be the last to release his shot. With 18 shots in the final completed, and a significant two-point deficit behind eventual gold medallists Kamalov Mukhammad and Nigina Saidkulova of Uzbekistan, India’s pistol coach Samaresh Jung took a timeout. He had seen something that would need addressing later in training, but had to be called out immediately.
“He told me that I was firing my shot late. After that, I tried to shoot a little quicker,” says Rana. When asked why the shots slowed down initially, he admitted, “I kept waiting for the perfect shot.”
Despite winning a silver in Delhi in a depleted field, both shooters now need to give time to their craft and live up to the lofty expectations they have earned. In a busy year with further domestic trials, and then the Asian Games and the World Championships, it’s the only way to keep improving.
Suruchi Phogat and Samrat Rana (extreme left) pose with their silver medals. (Credit: NRAI) 
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