Asian Games 2026 Day 2: India win two silvers and two bronzes as Suchika Tariyal secures historic MMA medal
On Day 2 of the Asian Games 2026 on September 21, Indian athletes collected four medals across shooting and mixed martial arts, and recorded multiple team victories in hockey, kabaddi, badminton and table tennis. Among the individual podiums, Himanshu Dhillon took silver and Rudrankksh Patil bronze in shooting, while Suchika Tariyal became the first Indian to win an MMA medal at the Games.
India’s shooting contingent supplied the bulk of the medals: the trio of Himanshu Dhillon, Rudrankksh Patil and Parth Mane finished second in the men’s 10m air rifle team event with a combined 1890.1 points, while Chinese shooters topped the corresponding women’s team competition. Himanshu Dhillon and Rudrankksh Patil advanced to the individual final; China’s Olympic champion Sheng Lihao recovered from a mid-final deficit to win gold, Rudrankksh settled for bronze after a couple of poor shots in the latter stages, and Dhillon claimed silver with consistent shooting.
In shotgun qualification after the first day, the Indian women’s team sat third on 132 points and the men’s side were sixth with 136 points, with two days of competition remaining in those events. The shotgun men were not inside the top 20 after day one, while on the women’s side Raiza Dhillon was ninth and her two teammates were placed 14th and 16th, giving them opportunities to target individual finals in the coming days.
The Indian women’s hockey team recorded a 17-1 victory over Indonesia, with hat-tricks from Deepika, Rutuja Pisal and Navneet Kaur as India collected three points and topped their group. Table tennis produced comfortable wins for India over Pakistan in both the men’s and women’s team events.
India’s kabaddi sides both opened with wins: the men beat Japan 49-24, with Ashu Malik and Devank Dalal prominent in the first half and Gaurav Khatri and Ankit Jaglan handling defensive duties, while Arjun Deshwal and Pawan Sehrawat saw action in the second half; the women defeated Bangladesh 42-21. In men’s badminton the Indian team swept Bangladesh 3-0, with Lakshaya Sen winning the opening match in straight games and Ayush Shetty and Srikanth Kidambi following with victories.
There were mixed results across other sports. Boxer Sumit Kundu advanced with a unanimous 5-0 decision over Bunjong Sinsiri of Thailand. Suchika Tariyal won bronze in the women’s traditional 60kg MMA category, losing her semi-final 2-1 to Singapore’s Hui Hoon Teo after the bout went into overtime, and was visibly emotional afterwards as her coach comforted her. In swimming, Srihari Natraj reached the men’s 50m backstroke final but finished last in the medal race. In wushu, Roshbina Devi won her round-of-16 bout by point difference and Aryan progressed to the last eight with a 2-0 victory. India suffered defeats in sepaktakraw to Japan after winning the first match of the best-of-three, and the soft tennis pair of Aadhya Tiwari and Jay Meena were eliminated after failing to win the subsequent matches.
India’s men’s badminton team will face Japan in the quarter-finals on Tuesday, and several Indian shooters still have two days of competition remaining to push for individual final berths.
