After winning India’s first gold medal in shooting in the 2026 Asian Games, Kamaljeet and Suruchi Singh admitted the country’s lack of a gold in the sport during the ongoing edition was on their mind before they ensured a top-of-the-podium finish in the mixed 10m air pistol event on Friday (September 26).
After five days of action, India failed to secure even a single gold in the sport after winning seven in the sportin the 2023 edition, which took place in Hangzhou. Kamaljeet and Suruchi had both endured disappointment in their individual events, as they both did not even qualify for the final, while India also missed out on medals in the Men’s and Women’s team events.
Responding to a question from Sports Now, Kamaljeet acknowledged India has had an average campaign so far in the sport but claimed he was not affected by outside noise, as he deleted all social media applications before his event.
“At least three to four days before the match, I deleted everything-Facebook, Instagram, all of it. Whatever social media I had, I cut it off completely because I didn’t want to read any comments or outside noise. When I went into my match, it was decent, but I fell just a bit short. Even after the match, I didn’t open them-I only opened Instagram today after it was all over. External comments didn’t affect me at all because I didn’t even look to see what was happening outside,” said Kamaljeet.
“It was just that we felt shooting was going average so far because we had three or four silver medals and two or three bronze medals. But we didn’t have a single gold. Before the match, I had made up my mind that we would get our gold in this event. So that was it-no social media, nothing else. Just belief in myself that the gold would come, and sir, it came,” the 23-year-old added.
Meanwhile, Suruchi admitted that it was on her mind before today’s events that no gold had come from shooting in the sport.
“It was in my mind that India hadn’t won a gold in shooting yet. I really wanted to bring one home, but… I couldn’t do much in the individual event. So my second hope was in the mixed team event. And it happened,” said Suruchi in reply to Sports Now’s query.
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Overall, this was only India’s second gold medal in the edition after the Women’s cricket team. As far as shooting is concerned, India now has 10 medals (1 gold, 5 silver, 4 bronze). In 2022, the country won 22 medals in the sport (7 gold, 9 silver, 6 bronze).