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Silver at Nagoya, but Himanshu Dhillon Wants Only Gold

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Haryana shooter Himanshu Dhillon, 20, won silver in the 10m air rifle at Nagoya on his senior international debut, but says only gold counts.

Himanshu Dhillon won the silver medal in the 10m air rifle event at Nagoya on Monday, September 21, 2026, marking his first senior international appearance. The 20-year-old from Haryana competed at the Asian Games and finished second, one place behind gold, in a discipline he had backed himself to win outright.

Dhillon made clear that the silver did not satisfy him. "I am only happy when I win gold. My father always says gold is the only medal that counts; every silver is a gold lost," he said after the event. He added that the mindset had shaped his approach on the range, and that he had been prepared to reset after every shot if that was what it took to chase the top place.

"I had decided that even if I had to walk off after every shot to get my bearings right, I would do it but go for gold. Unfortunately, that didn't happen but I will keep trying till I get it," Dhillon said.

The result came out of a close contest with his senior teammate Rudrankksh Patil over the colour of the medal. Dhillon said he refused to ease off once a bronze was already secured. "I knew I could have taken it a little easy after the top-three were decided, that at least a bronze was confirmed. But I was not ready to give up. I kept thinking that the colour of the medal could still change, that I could maybe shoot a perfect score and the others might slip up," he said.

From the wrestling mat to the shooting range

Dhillon comes from a state more readily associated with wrestling, and he was expected to follow that path. He is the nephew of Hardeep Singh Dhillon, who competed in the Greco-Roman 98kg category at the 2016 Rio Olympics. As a child, Himanshu was introduced to wrestling for fitness but lasted only a few weeks. "Wrestling was too hard," he said.

His father then enrolled him at Gurukul Pundri in Kaithal to make him more independent, and it was there that he took up shooting. The early days were difficult, and he questioned the decision. "When I started, every time I would collapse on the mat, I would wonder what I had got myself into. But now it finally feels like I did the right thing, that the decision to get into shooting was not a mistake," he said. By his own account, the belief that has driven him has been almost a decade in the making.

Next stop: Doha

Dhillon's next competition is the World Championships in Doha. He said sharing space with some of the world's leading shooters in the changing room was a source of motivation, but that the picture changed once competition began.

"There, everyone starts at zero," he said, before adding in Hindi that the range is where nerve is tested - "Wahan dekhte hain kiska kitna jigra hai." That self-belief, on the evidence of his debut, is not in short supply.

The silver in Nagoya gives Dhillon a senior international medal at his first attempt, even as it falls short of the standard he has set for himself. His stated aim remains unchanged heading into Doha: to convert the near-miss into the gold he says is the only result that counts.

Himanshu Dhillon, 10m air rifle, Asian Games Nagoya, Haryana shooter, Rudrankksh Patil, Doha World Championships, Indian shooting

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