India’s Uchaganve Kedarling Balakrishna competes in the 10m Air Pistol Men’s qualification during the 20th Asian Games, in Nagoya, Japan, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026. (PTI Photo)At the 2023 Asian Games, India’s 10m air pistol shooters won four medals, two gold and two silver. At the ongoing 2026 edition, no Indian pistol shooter has managed to defend a single one of them.The men’s shooters failed to reach the final in both individual and team events. Among the women, only Manu Bhaker made the final, finishing fifth. India lost the women’s individual gold and silver from 2023, the men’s team gold, and the women’s team silver, missing out on team medals in both events altogether.Click here to read our Asian Games full coverageIndian shooting’s high performance director Pierre Beauchamp declined to discuss the results. “I cannot speak right now. I will only talk after India’s competition at the Games are over,” he told PTI.Events such as 50m 3P and sports pistol are still to come, so the full picture isn’t in yet. But losing four medals, including a gold, in the disciplines already decided is hard to explain away.Also Read | Asian Games: In shooting, India’s search for gold continuesIndia’s first shooting gold at the 2023 Asian Games came on the second day of that edition, when Rudrankksh Patil, Aishwary Tomar and Divyansh Singh Panwar won the men’s team 10m air rifle event. This time, the Indian shooting contingent is yet to win a gold of any colour, and the results raise a question the federation will have to sit with: whether fielding new faces at a high-profile event is worth the risk it carries.For the men’s pistol team, NRAI picked the inexperienced trio of Aakash Bhardwaj, Kedarling Uchaganve and Kamaljeet, while World Champion Samrat Rana and Olympic medallist Sarabjot Singh stayed home. The selection came through a trial system that had worked before, at the 2024 Olympics, where Indian shooters won three medals. But a trial score doesn’t always carry the weight of a big occasion. Kamaljeet is primarily a 50m pistol shooter; his ISSF profile shows only one prior 10m air pistol appearance, at this year’s Hangzhou World Cup. Kedarling and Aakash have similarly thin records at major events.…If the men’s failure had inexperience behind it, the women’s did not. Esha Singh and Suruchi Singh Phogat, both expected to medal, faltered in qualification. Esha is a double medallist from the 2023 Asian Games and competed at the 2024 Olympics. Suruchi won three ISSF World Cup golds in a row last year.Story continues below this adIndian pistol coach Ronak Pandit reached for cricket to explain Suruchi’s day. “After scoring centuries a cricketer does get out on a duck. It is a sport, it happens. Of course she put in the hard work and tried her best even today but at the end of the day she is human and there is absolutely no margin for error. Sad and unfortunate that it happened at the Games but as the coaching team we will definitely take this seriously and debrief them to understand and fix the problem because we anticipated and prepared for every eventuality and yet fell short so the entire team has to work on it, not just the athlete.”India won 22 medals, including seven gold, at the previous edition. The 50m 3P and 25m pistol events remain, with more experienced names, Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Rudrankksh Patil, Manu Bhaker, Esha Singh, Ashi Chouksey and Rahi Sarnobat, still in the fray.