Mumbai: The day started with the disappointment of the men’s 10m air pistol shooting team being unable to win a medal at the Asian Games. By now, pistol shooting has had a long and fruitful history for India on the international stage.
Chinese pair of Jiag Yiting and Lyu Jianlin won the gold with a world record score of 52, followed by South Koreans Jang Kookhee and Lee Jongjun who scored 51. Both teams comfortably went past the previous world record of 47, set by Qatar this January. Though India had never won a medal in the mixed skeet team event, 28-year-old Naruka and 24-year-old Dhaliwal from Patiala had already gotten a taste of what it was like to stand on an Asian Games podium. Naruka, who was introduced to the sport by his father, Dalpat Singh Naruka – a skeet shooter himself – had won a silver medal in the individual skeet event and bronze in the team event at the delayed Asian Games of 2023. Meanwhile Dhaliwal, who began shooting in 2014, was a part of the Indian team that competed at the previous Asian Games in Hangzhou.
This time, along with Raiza Dhillon and Maheshwari Chauhan, Dhillon won the bronze in the team competition. On that occasion though, she just missed out on a spot on the podium after the women’s squad finished fourth in the team event.
An event, however, that has largely stayed under the radar, is the mixed team skeet event as no Indian pairing had ever managed to win an Asiad medal in the discipline. No Indians had ever stepped on the podium in the mixed skeet team event before Thursday. Dhaliwal and Naruka, though, knew exactly what they needed to do.
On Wednesday, he had already opened his account in this edition of the Asiad at the Aichi Prefecture General Shooting Gallery with a bronze in the men’s team event, along with Bhavtegh Singh Gill and veteran Mairaj Ahmer Khan.
