Indian athletes added five more medals to their tally at the Asian Games 2026 in Aichi-Nagoya on Wednesday, bringing the country’s total tally to 12. India is 13th in the overall medals tally as of Wednesday.
The standout performance of the day on Wednesday was , who clinched a silver medal in women’s weightlifting (49kg), ending her medal drought at the Asian Games.
She finished ninth at the 2014 Asian Games, missed the 2018 edition due to injury, and finished fourth at the 2023 Hangzhou Games. Her medal also ended India’s 28-year wait for an weightlifting medal, dating back to Karnam Malleswari’s podium finish in 1998.
India’s men’s badminton team also secured a bronze medal after losing 3-1 to China in the semifinal. Lakshya Sen lost the opening singles match to Shi Yu Qi, before Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty defeated Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang 21-11, 22-20 to level the tie.
China regained the lead when Li Shifeng beat 21-19, 21-13, while Hariharan Amsakarunan and MR Arjun then lost 21-16, 17-21, 21-9. The result gave India its second Asian Games medal in the men’s team badminton event.
India also collected two bronze medals in skeet shooting. Raiza Dhillon, Parinaaz Dhaliwal and Maheshwari Chauhan finished third in the women’s team event with a combined score of 331. Raiza and Parinaaz contributed 111 points each, while Maheshwari scored 109.
In the men’s team event, Anantjeet Singh Naruka, Mairaj Ahmad Khan and Bhavtegh Singh Gill secured bronze after finishing level with Kazakhstan at 346 points and winning the subsequent shoot-off. Naruka scored 119, Mairaj 116 and Bhavtegh 111.
Jay Meena won bronze in men’s singles soft tennis. Meena lost 2-4 to Japan’s Takuya Kurosaka in the semifinal after fighting back from three games down. His medal is India’s first-ever Asian Games medal in soft tennis.
India’s only gold medal so far at the Games came from the -led women’s cricket team, which defeated Sri Lanka by 147 runs in the final in Nisshin on Tuesday. India scored 216/3 before bowling Sri Lanka out for 69.
Manu Bhaker, meanwhile, missed out on a medal in the women’s 10m air pistol event. The double Olympic medallist qualified for the eight-shooter final in third place with a score of 579-20x, making her India’s only finalist in the event.
Bhaker remained in contention during the elimination stages and briefly moved into the medal positions, but she was eventually eliminated after her 18th shot and finished fifth with 181.1 points.
South Korea’s Choo Gaeun won the gold medal with 246.3, a new Asian Games record, while China’s Shen Yiyao took silver with 241.3 and Jiang Ranxin won bronze with 221.6.
India’s other two competitors, Esha Singh and Suruchi Inder Singh, finished 15th and 26th, respectively, in qualification. India also finished fourth in the women’s 10m air pistol team event with 1,719 points, missing the bronze medal to Vietnam on inner-10 counts.
