Asian Games 2026: Elavenil Valarivan adds 2 silvers to Indian collection; Suchika Tariyal eyes historic medal in MMA
Elavenil opened India’s Asian games medal campaign adding two silvers on Sunday. The two-time Olympian, who palyed for India at both Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, picked up two silvers at Asian Games in Nagoya this year.
The first came in a team effort. Elavenil, Sonam Uttam Maskar and Vidarsa K Vinod, the trio went of for silver in the women’s 10-metre air rifle team event. She wasn’t done yet, though. Elavenil went back to the range and picked up an individual silver too.
She’s been one of the best in the business for a while now. Elavenil once held the world number one spot in women’s air rifle, and her breakthrough came early — a junior world qualification record at the 2018 ISSF Junior World Cup in Sydney, just her second ISSF event. The medals kept coming after that: World Championships, World Cups, the World Cup Finale, Asian Championships. Few Indian shooters can match her record.
India’s medal tally kept climbing on the mats too. Suchika Tariyal punched her way into the semifinals of the women’s traditional 60kg mixed martial arts category — guaranteeing gold or otherwise still a medal to script history. Earlier in the day, the women in blue thrashed Bangladesh a proper hiding on the cricket field by 114 runs in the semifinal to book a final date with 2023 defending champions Sri Lanka.
There was plenty happening on the hockey turf too. The Indian women’s team had an easy day, defeating Uzbekistan 19-0 in their group match. The men followed up with a 13-1 win over Indonesia.
Not everyone had it so good. Quimcy D’Souza lost the bronze medal playoff in Teqball to Yuina Sakamoto and finished fourth — so close to a medal, but no cigar this time.
India is alive in the women’s team Group F table tennis match against Singapore. The first, Shreeja Akula had lost the first game but went on to charge to victory in the next three wins, 3-1. It’s all square 2-2 between the two teams as we go into the match three between Yashaswini Gorphade and Ming Loy.