India win six medals on Day 6 at Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, including shooting gold and historic pole vault bronze
India won six medals at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Friday, the contingent claiming one gold, two silver and three bronze across shooting, athletics and table tennis.
The six-medal haul comprised five medals from shooting and athletics and a sixth from table tennis, while other disciplines produced mixed outcomes across badminton, swimming, boxing and fencing. The day featured both landmark achievements and unexpected defeats for India, with performances spanning medal rounds, semifinals and early exits.
In shooting, Kamaljeet and Suruchi Inder Singh captured gold in the mixed team 10m air pistol after topping qualification with 587 points and converting that position into victory in the medal round; the pair had missed out on individual medals earlier. The men's 50m rifle three positions team — Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil and Niraj Kumar — secured silver, with Aishwary reaching the individual final and finishing fifth and Niraj placing eighth.
Athletics contributed three podiums. Gulveer Singh took silver in the men's 10,000m with a time of 28:29.38, finishing behind Bahrain's Birhanu Balew and ahead of Albert Kipto. Baranica Elangovan won a joint bronze in the women's pole vault after clearing 4.15m and matching Kazakhstan's Polina Ivanova, both recording the same number of failures at 4.25m; that result was India's first-ever Asian Games medal in pole vault. Manpreet Kaur added bronze in the women's shot put with a 17.17m effort, finishing behind China's Song Jiayuan and Zhang Linru and improving on her fifth-place finish at the previous Asian Games.
Table tennis provided the sixth medal when Manush Shah and Diya Chitale defeated Hong Kong's Doo Hoi Kem and Wong Chun Ting 3-1 in the mixed doubles quarterfinals to guarantee a podium place; they were beaten 0-4 by China's Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha in the semifinals. The mixed doubles bronze was India's second-ever Asian Games medal in the event after Sharath Kamal and Manika Batra's bronze in Jakarta. Manush also won 4-0 against Iran's Benyamin Faraji in singles, while Yashaswini Ghorpade beat Syria's Hend Zaza 4-1 to reach the women's singles round of 16; Manav Thakkar and Sreeja Akula exited in singles and India's doubles pairings were eliminated.
Badminton produced a major upset when defending men's doubles champions Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty lost in the first round to Thailand's Pakkapon Teeraratsakul and Peeratchai Sukphun after winning the first game 21-12 and then dropping the next two 19-21, 14-21. Other Indian pairs progressed: Tanisha Crasto and Dhruv Kapila advanced to the mixed doubles quarterfinals after two wins, Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand moved into the women's doubles draw, and Unnati Hooda advanced in the women's singles. The men's team had already secured bronze in the team event, while the women's team failed to win a medal.
India's swimmers and fencers failed to reach the podium. Sajan Prakash finished seventh in the men's 200m butterfly final in 1:58.42, Rishabh Das was sixth and Utkarsh Patil seventh in the men's 200m backstroke, and Dhanshan Shashikumar and Aneesh Gowda did not reach the 400m freestyle final; Sajan was competing in his last Asian Games. The men's foil fencing team lost 27-45 to Hong Kong and the women's epee team were beaten 29-45 by Uzbekistan in the round of 16. In boxing, Sachin Siwach advanced to the men's 60kg quarterfinals with a 4-1 win over Jordan's Mohammad Adnan Abu Jajeh and is set to face Japan's Shunsuke Kitamoto in the last eight, while Preeti Pawar was eliminated in the women's 54kg round of 16 after a 0-5 defeat to North Korea's reigning Asian Games champion Pang Chol Mi.
India also reached two kabaddi finals on Friday, with the women's team defeating Nepal 48-24 and the men beating Thailand 66-28; both teams remained unbeaten and will face Iran in their respective finals on Saturday, providing two further opportunities to add gold as several Indian athletes continue their medal campaigns.
