Tajinderpal Singh Toor takes silver in Nagoya, misses bid for third straight Asian Games shot put gold

Tajinderpal Singh Toor won the silver medal in the men's shot put at the 2026 Asian Games in Nagoya on September 26, throwing 20.64 metres, while Iran’s Mohammadreza Tayebise claimed gold with 20.81m. Toor had entered the competition attempting to become the first Indian track and field athlete to win three consecutive Asian Games golds in the same event.

Toor's Asian Games career began in Jakarta when he was 23, where his first and fourth attempts measured 19.96m and his fifth attempt reached 20.75m, a distance that earned him the gold medal. That 20.75m effort in Jakarta broke India’s national record — previously 20.69m held by Om Prakash Karhana for six years — and established a new Asian Games record. In that Jakarta final, China’s Liu Yang took silver with 19.52m and Kazakhstan’s Ivan Ivanov earned bronze with 19.40m.

At the Hangzhou Asian Games five years later, Toor again produced a winning performance despite an uneven start, recording a winning mark of 20.36m on his sixth and final attempt. Saudi Arabia’s Mohamed Daouda Tolo finished second with 20.18m and China’s Yang Liu was third with 19.97m. That victory made Toor a two-time Asian Games champion and one of only four Indian shot-putters to win gold at consecutive Asian Games.

Earlier in 2026 Toor registered a season-best 21.03m in Delhi in April, but his preparations were disrupted by a Grade-1 tear in his calf muscle sustained 12 days before the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. The injury affected his Commonwealth Games campaign, where he finished fifth with a best of 20.27m. He recovered sufficiently to travel to Nagoya as the two-time defending Asian Games champion.

In Nagoya, Iran’s Mohammadreza Tayebise produced a 20.81m throw that surpassed the Games record Toor had set in 2018, while Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed Tolu recorded 20.48m to take bronze. Toor’s best effort of 20.64m in Nagoya was his strongest since the calf injury and secured him the silver medal behind Tayebise.

Toor, a 31-year-old from a farming family in the village of Khosa Pando in Punjab who as a child wanted to play cricket, is a two-time Olympian and now a three-time Asian Games medallist. Despite falling short of the gold he sought in Nagoya, his podium finish extended his sequence of medals at the Asian Games to three successive editions.

Toor won silver with a throw of 20.64m at the 2026 Asian Games in Nagoya. Iran’s Mohammadreza Tayebise took gold with a Games-record 20.81m, ending Toor’s bid to become the first Indian track and field athlete to win three straight Asian Games golds in one event. 3 — gold at Jakarta in 2018 (20.75m, a Games record at the time), gold at Hangzhou in 2023 (20.36m), and silver at Nagoya in 2026 (20.64m).