History Repeats: India Wins Silver in Women’s 10m Air Rifle Team for the Second Straight Asian Games

Some results feel like déjà vu — and for India’s air rifle shooters, that’s exactly the point. A repeat performance, three years apart, on the biggest continental stage.

India opened its medal account at the 2026 Asian Games with a silver medal in the women’s 10m Air Rifle Team event, as Elavenil Valarivan, Sonam Maskar, and Vidarsa K. Vinod combined for a strong showing at the Aichi Prefectural General Shooting Gallery on Sunday.

10m Air Rifle: Final Team Standings

A Photo-Finish Behind a World Record

China’s trio of Zifei Wang, Jiayu Han, and Yuchen Du claimed gold with an aggregate score of 1904.2 points — a new world record for the event. India’s team totaled 1898.0 points after six series of shooting each, securing silver by a narrow margin over Japan’s trio of Hinata Taichi, Misaki Nobata, and Shiori Hirata, who finished with 1897.1 points for bronze.

The closeness between India and Japan’s scores made this one of the more tightly contested team podiums of the Games so far, with less than a single point separating silver from bronze.

Individual Final Berths Secured

Beyond the team result, both Sonam Maskar and Elavenil Valarivan punched their tickets to the individual final scheduled later the same day. Maskar led India’s qualification effort, finishing third individually with 634.1 points, while Valarivan wasn’t far behind in seventh place with 633.5 points. China’s Wang topped the individual qualification round outright with 636.8 points, reinforcing just how dominant the Chinese shooting squad has been throughout the competition.

A Familiar Feeling for India

This silver marks India’s second consecutive runner-up finish in this exact event at the Asian Games, following a similar result at the 2023 Hangzhou Asiad. That kind of back-to-back consistency signals genuine depth and stability in India’s women’s air rifle program, rather than a one-off standout performance — a pattern worth watching as the team looks to eventually close the gap with China’s world-record-setting form.

Shooting continues to be one of India’s most dependable medal sources at major multi-sport events, part of a broader tradition within shooting sports where precision and consistency across multiple competitors often separate medal contenders from the rest of the field.

For more Asian Games 2026 coverage, India’s medal tally, and shooting event updates, check out the latest coverage on technosports.co.in.

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