India’s Neeru Dhanda and Kynan Chenai won the Asian Games trap mixed team gold in Aichi-Nagoya on Wednesday, finishing the final with 34 hits after starting it in last place. Most Indian outlets call the score an Asian record, and reports put the mark it replaced at 30 or 33, both credited to Qatar. It was Dhanda’s second gold of the Games in two days.
How India won the Asian Games trap mixed team gold
The pair reached the four-team final as the fourth-ranked qualifiers. In qualification, Chenai shot 73 and Dhanda 63, according to Deccan Herald. The Statesman reports that they sat last after the opening series of the final, then kept finding targets until the gold was secure.
Their 34 secured the Asian Games trap mixed team gold, ahead of Qatar’s Mohammed Al-Rumaihi and Ray Bassil, who took silver with 32. China’s Qi Ying and Sun Yunong won bronze. One outlet gives the bronze score as 23, a figure HCN could not square with the other results, so it is left out until official scoresheets are checked.
Chenai, whose father Darius also competed in national shotgun events, called the pairing a lucky one. He said the two hope to stay together as a mixed team, but that this depends on India’s shooting federation.
The record: what is and is not settled
Four outlets describe 34 as an Asian record, while one calls it a Games record. Three put the previous mark at 30 and one at 33, and all attribute it to Qatar, set earlier in 2026. HCN could not find an ISSF or organiser statement that settles either question.
The difference matters for how the result is read. A continental record and a Games record are different benchmarks, and a gap of three targets changes how large the improvement was. Until an official record list is published, the safest reading is that 34 is a reported new best, not a confirmed one.
Dhanda’s two days in Nagoya
The mixed title is Dhanda’s third medal in Aichi-Nagoya. On Tuesday she won silver in the women’s trap team event with Aashima Ahlawat and Manisha Keer. India’s 328 finished behind China’s 346 and ahead of Kuwait’s 325, and Dhanda hit 118 of 125 targets, the best of the three.
Later that day she won the women’s individual trap gold, described in multiple reports as the first by an Indian woman in that event at the Asian Games. The 26-year-old, a Naib Subedar in the Indian Army, shot 28 of 30 in qualification, which several outlets call an Asian record.
Her form was already strong. She won her first ISSF World Cup title in Lonato, Italy, in July, and in August 2025 she took women’s trap gold at the Asian Shooting Championships in Shymkent, Kazakhstan.
Chenai has the longer record. He won men’s trap team gold at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, held in 2023, and competed at the Rio Olympics in 2016, where he missed the trap semi-final.
Compound archery adds to India’s day
Shooting was not India’s only source of gold on Wednesday. The women’s compound archery team of Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Chikitha Taniparthi and Prithika Pradeep beat China 238-234 to defend the title India won in Hangzhou. The score equals the world record for a 24-arrow women’s compound team match, and the Indian trio closed with a perfect final round of six tens.
Olympics.com reports that India won all three compound team titles that day. Chikitha and Sahil Jadhav took the mixed team event, which earned India a quota place for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. The individual compound medals are still to be decided.
Two outlets call the trap mixed team result India’s ninth gold of the Games, and one puts the country’s total at 56 medals: nine gold, 21 silver and 26 bronze. HCN has not seen an official medal table confirming those figures.
What the results can and cannot show about support for less-covered sports
Compound archery is a useful test of the idea that India is reaping the benefits of wider investment. In 2023, ESPN reported that compound archery, then outside the Olympic programme, received less financial support than recurve, and that Vennam wanted that to change. The new mixed team quota for Los Angeles 2028 raises the stakes for the discipline.
That is a reason to watch how funding follows results, not proof that it already has. HCN found no verified figures on federation budgets, government grants or training programmes for shooting or archery, and no data on pathways for women in either sport.
The record question remains open. For the Asian Games trap mixed team gold, the ISSF and the Asian Games organisers will need to confirm which mark Dhanda and Chenai broke and by how much. HCN will update this report as official results are published.
For more sport from the same week, read HCN’s report on the Yankees’ Game 1 wild-card shutout of the Red Sox.