Asian Games 2026 Day 6: India’s shooting and athletics lift medal haul as China extends lead
India produced one of its most productive days at the Asian Games on Friday, September 25, with successes in shooting and athletics boosting the country’s total. Early in the session Suruchi Inder Singh and Kamaljeet set an Asian record to win the mixed 10m air pistol gold, India’s second gold of the Games after the women’s cricket team’s earlier triumph.
Athletics supplied several of India’s medals on Day 6: Gulveer Singh took silver in the men’s 10,000m with a time of 28:29.38, finishing behind Bahrain’s Birhanu Balew. Baranica Elangovan created history in the women’s pole vault by becoming the first Indian to win an Asian Games medal in the discipline, clearing 4.15m to share bronze with Kazakhstan’s Polina Ivanova. Manpreet Kaur secured bronze in the women’s shot put, while Diya Chitale and Manush Shah earned a mixed doubles table tennis bronze after a 0-3 semi-final loss to China’s top pair. Both India’s men’s and women’s kabaddi teams advanced to Sunday’s finals, and the day pushed the national tally past 20 medals.
Chinese swimmers featured prominently across the pool events: Zhang Yufei won the women’s 50m butterfly in 25.41 seconds ahead of Wu Qingfeng and Japan’s Rikako Ikee. Qin Haiyang claimed gold in the men’s 50m breaststroke with Liu Junjie taking silver and Japan’s Shin Ohashi bronze. Li Bingjie prevailed in the women’s 800m freestyle, with Singapore’s Gan Ching Hwee and Japan’s Ichika Kajimoto finishing second and third respectively.
In the pool and on the boards, China won the women’s 4x100m medley relay ahead of Japan and South Korea, and Japan’s Kodai Nishiono captured the men’s 200m backstroke. Weightlifting produced gold for China’s Yang Liuyue in the women’s 61kg with a 251kg total, while North Korea’s Oh Kwang Ok topped the women’s 57kg class with 238kg.
Canoe sprint results saw China’s Sun Mengya and Ma Yanan win the women’s canoe double 500m, Uzbekistan’s Shohshamam Sherzodova and Nilufar Zokirova take silver, and Vietnam’s Thi Huong Nguyen and Thi Huong Diep take bronze. China’s dressage team secured equestrian gold with a score of 208.148, with South Korea and Japan completing the podium and India narrowly missing a placing. In fencing, Japan defeated Hong Kong and China beat South Korea in the women’s epee team final.
Artistic gymnastics produced a women’s balance beam gold for South Korea’s Hwang Seohyun, with China’s Qiu Qiyuan second and Japan’s Mana Okamura third; the Philippines’ Carlos Edriel Yulo won the men’s vault ahead of Iran’s Mahdi Olfati and Hong Kong’s Ng Ka Ki. In athletics Uzbekistan’s Sukhrob Khodjaev won the men’s hammer throw with 74.38m, ahead of Japan’s Shota Fukuda and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed Aldubaisi. China’s Chen Yujie claimed the women’s 100m in 11.06 seconds, a Games record, and Thailand’s Puripol Boonson set a Games record to win the men’s 100m in 9.90 seconds.
The overall standings after Day 6 remained dominated by China, who extended their lead to 98 gold, 37 silver and 24 bronze medals for a total of 159 medals. Japan sat second with 28 golds, while South Korea, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan completed the top five. India stood 12th with 2 gold, 9 silver and 12 bronze medals after clinching six medals on Day 6 — 1 gold, 2 silvers and 3 bronzes — bringing its total to 23 medals at the end of Day 6.
The country will hope to enter the top-10 on Saturday, as it looks to replicate or even better its performance from the 2022 Hangzhou Games.
