TOYOTA, Japan, September 21, 2026: China broke the men’s 10m air rifle team world record before Sheng Lihao completed a dominant morning at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games by defending his individual title with an Asian and Asian Games record 254.2.
Sheng combined with Ma Sihan and Zhang Changhong for a team total of 1,899.0, improving the previous world record of 1,898.4 set by China at the 2025 World Championships. India finished second on 1,890.1 through Rudrankksh Patil, Himanshu Dhillon and Parth Mane, while South Korea took bronze with 1,884.2.
The individual final then produced another layer of drama. Rudrankksh led after the opening 10 shots, Dhillon climbed into the medal positions, and Sheng had to work his way past both Indians before closing out gold. Dhillon finished with 252.4 for silver and Rudrankksh with 230.9 for bronze.
For China, the result extended the shooting momentum that had already begun on the first full medal day of the Games, when its women’s 10m air rifle team also broke a world record. For India, the men’s team silver followed the women’s silver and confirmed shooting as the country’s most productive early medal source.
Story at a glance
China’s 10m Air Rifle World Record: How the 1,899.0 Was Built
The team event is decided through the combined qualification scores of three shooters, which means China’s record came from consistency across 180 shots rather than one exceptional final.
Sheng Lihao Broke His Own Asian Games Qualification Record Before the Final
Sheng had already put the rest of the field under pressure before the medal round began.
How Did India Win Team Silver?
India finished 8.9 points behind China but 5.9 clear of South Korea.
Rudrankksh Patil Led the Final Before Sheng Took Control
The individual final did not begin as a procession for the favorite.
What Record Did Sheng Lihao Break With 254.2?
Sheng’s 254.2 improved the Asian and Asian Games final record of 253.3 that he set while winning at Hangzhou in 2023.
The broader tournament picture is developing exactly along the lines explored in The Sports Encounter’s complete Asian Games 2026 preview, where China’s depth and India’s attempt to build on a 107-medal Hangzhou campaign were identified as two of the defining national storylines.
China’s 10m Air Rifle World Record: How the 1,899.0 Was Built
| China Shooter | Qualification Score |
|---|---|
| Sheng Lihao | 635.4 |
| Ma Sihan | 633.0 |
| Zhang Changhong | 630.6 |
| China Total | 1899.0 WR |
The team event is decided through the combined qualification scores of three shooters, which means China’s record came from consistency across 180 shots rather than one exceptional final.
Sheng supplied the largest contribution with 635.4, Ma followed at 633.0 and Zhang added 630.6.
The total moved China 0.6 points beyond the previous team world record. The International Shooting Sport Federation’s official record register listed the old mark at 1,898.4, set by Wang Honghao, Sheng Lihao and Wang Yutong in Cairo on November 8, 2025.
A difference of six-tenths across 180 shots illustrates how narrow the margins become at this level.
China Reversed the Hangzhou Team Result
The result also reversed an important piece of recent Asian Games history.
At Hangzhou in 2023, India won the men’s 10m air rifle team gold with 1,893.7. South Korea finished second on 1,890.1 and China were third.
Three years later, China moved from bronze to gold and raised the global standard in the process.
Rudrankksh was part of India’s Hangzhou gold-medal team, which makes his role in the 2026 silver especially notable. The personnel changed around him, but India remained on the podium.
Sheng Lihao Broke His Own Asian Games Qualification Record Before the Final
Sheng had already put the rest of the field under pressure before the medal round began.
His 635.4 in qualification improved the Asian Games qualification record of 634.5 he set in Hangzhou in 2023.
That distinction matters because 635.4 was a Games record, rather than the overall world qualification record. Sheng himself owns the larger global benchmark of 637.9.
The 2026 score therefore showed how far ahead he was of the Asian Games field without overstating the record.
Ma was second in qualification on 633.0. Rudrankksh ranked third at 631.8, while South Korea’s Park Hajun followed on 631.4.
Zhang finished fifth on 630.6 but did not reach the final because only two athletes per nation are permitted to advance. With Sheng and Ma already ahead of him, China’s third shooter was excluded despite ranking inside the top eight overall.
That rule opened another place further down the standings and shows why team strength does not translate mechanically into three places in an individual medal final.
How Did India Win Team Silver?
| India Shooter | Qualification Score |
|---|---|
| Rudrankksh Patil | 631.8 |
| Himanshu Dhillon | 630.0 |
| Parth Mane | 628.3 |
| India Total | 1890.1 |
India finished 8.9 points behind China but 5.9 clear of South Korea.
Rudrankksh carried the strongest individual qualification score for India, while Dhillon did enough to join him in the final. Mane missed the medal round but remained essential to the team silver because all three qualification totals counted.
India’s early Asian Games shooting form had already been established a day earlier. Elavenil Valarivan combined with Sonam Uttam Maskar and Vidarsa Kochalumkal Vinod for women’s 10m air rifle team silver before Valarivan added an individual silver, performances covered in TSE’s opening medal-day report.
Two days of air rifle competition have therefore produced five Indian shooting medals.
Rudrankksh Patil Led the Final Before Sheng Took Control
The individual final did not begin as a procession for the favorite.
Rudrankksh shot 52.8 through the opening five shots and reached 106.0 after 10, putting him first.
Sheng was on 104.9.
Dhillon sat just behind on 104.8.
After the first elimination, India briefly occupied the top two positions, with Rudrankksh leading on 127.4 and Dhillon moving second on 126.6.
Sheng stayed close enough that the order never felt secure.
By 16 shots he had moved ahead, and with four shooters remaining the standings showed Sheng on 211.6, Rudrankksh on 210.6 and Dhillon on 210.0.
The Chinese champion had taken control, but both Indians were still within range of one poor shot changing the medal order.
One 9.7 Changed the Silver-Bronze Battle
Rudrankksh’s 21st shot produced the decisive shift behind Sheng.
He scored 9.7.
Dhillon moved past him into second place.
Rudrankksh responded with a 10.6 on his elimination shot, but Dhillon protected the advantage with 10.4 and secured silver.
Rudrankksh finished on 230.9.
Dhillon then tried to close the gap on Sheng over the final two shots. He reduced the margin to 1.8 but could not force the Chinese shooter into a mistake.
Sheng closed with 254.2. Dhillon finished on 252.4.
The Olympics.com competition report confirms India’s silver-bronze finish and the final totals.
What Record Did Sheng Lihao Break With 254.2?
Sheng’s 254.2 improved the Asian and Asian Games final record of 253.3 that he set while winning at Hangzhou in 2023.
It was not the current world record.
That distinction is worth making because the same competition had already produced a team world record earlier in the day.
The men’s 10m air rifle individual world record currently stands at 255.0, set by Italy’s Danilo Dennis Sollazzo in Ningbo in September 2025, according to the ISSF record register.
Sheng therefore left Toyota with three different achievements attached to one morning:
- team gold and a team world record of 1,899.0;
- an Asian Games qualification record of 635.4;
- individual gold with an Asian and Asian Games final record of 254.2.
That is a much more precise description than treating every number as the same type of record.
Why Sheng Lihao Was Expected to Win and Still Had to Earn It
Sheng arrived as the world No. 1 in men’s 10m air rifle and already owned two Olympic gold medals from Paris 2024.
The ISSF world rankings list him at the top of the discipline heading into Aichi-Nagoya.
He also entered as defending Asian Games champion.
That résumé made him the favorite.
The final still asked him to recover from a slower opening than both Indians.
Rudrankksh established the early lead. Dhillon remained inside the medal positions throughout. Sheng had to close the gap rather than protect one from the opening series.
His response explains why the gold matters beyond another medal count. He did not simply confirm a ranking. He adjusted inside a final where two opponents had initially put him behind.
China Have Now Set Air Rifle Team World Records on Consecutive Days
The men’s result followed another Chinese team world record less than 24 hours earlier.
Wang Zifei, Han Jiayu and Du Yuchen combined for 1,904.2 in the women’s 10m air rifle team competition.
India also finished second in that event.
That means the opening two shooting days have produced the same broad team pattern in both air rifle disciplines: China setting the world standard, India taking silver.
TSE’s first medal-day analysis documented the women’s record and Hinata Taichi’s individual victory for Japan.
China’s ability to produce record-level team totals in both men’s and women’s air rifle helps explain why its overall medal-table dominance is so difficult to challenge. The country arrived in Japan after winning 201 gold medals at Hangzhou, a wider dynasty explored in TSE’s Aichi-Nagoya preview.
Why India’s Double Podium Matters Even Without Gold
India entered Aichi-Nagoya trying to prove that Hangzhou’s record 107-medal performance had created a higher baseline rather than a one-off peak.
Shooting was always expected to carry a large part of that effort.
Rudrankksh, Dhillon and Mane delivered team silver against a world-record Chinese performance. Hours later, Dhillon and Rudrankksh occupied two of the three individual podium positions.
The absence of gold does not erase what that says about depth.
India placed three shooters high enough to challenge for the team medal, put two into the eight-man final and then converted both final places into medals.
That kind of conversion rate is valuable across a multi-sport event with 469 medal events and huge swings in the table from one session to another.
The scale of that wider challenge became clear when more than 11,000 athletes formally entered the Games during the opening ceremony.
South Korea Stay on the Podium but Miss the Individual Medals
South Korea’s team bronze came with 1,884.2.
Park Hajun and Shin Minki both advanced to the individual final, giving Korea a chance to turn the team podium into another medal.
Neither reached the final three.
That contrast shows how differently the two formats reward depth.
In the team event, three solid qualification totals can produce a medal even without one athlete dominating the field.
The individual final resets the competition and progressively eliminates shooters after the opening series. Previous qualification scores disappear from the medal calculation.
India handled that transition better than Korea on Monday.
What Does This Mean for the Asian Games Medal Race?
China had already taken early control of the overall medal table before the men’s air rifle medals were awarded.
The shooting results add another gold to that advantage while reinforcing the depth behind the headline athletes.
India’s medal count also continues to rise almost entirely through shooting at this early stage.
Those patterns are likely to change as swimming, combat sports, team events and eventually athletics distribute larger blocks of medals.
For now, the shooting range is doing exactly what both countries hoped it would do.
China are turning favorite status into gold and records.
India are putting multiple athletes on podiums even when the world’s strongest shooter stands in their path.
The Games remain live through October 4, with the major competition calendar tracked through The Sports Encounter’s Upcoming Sports Encounters. TSE’s opening-day results coverage and pre-Games analysis of medal-efficient teams such as North Korea provide additional context for how smaller and larger delegations are approaching Aichi-Nagoya.
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What world record did China break in Asian Games shooting?
China scored 1,899.0 in the men’s 10m air rifle team event, breaking the previous world record of 1,898.4.
Who were the shooters in China’s world-record team?
Sheng Lihao, Ma Sihan and Zhang Changhong combined for China’s 1,899.0 total.
Who won the men’s 10m air rifle individual gold?
China’s Sheng Lihao won gold with 254.2.
What record did Sheng Lihao set in the final?
His 254.2 was a new Asian record and Asian Games record, improving the 253.3 mark he set at Hangzhou in 2023.
Did Sheng Lihao break the individual world record?
No. The current individual world record is 255.0. Sheng’s 254.2 was an Asian and Asian Games record.
What record did Sheng set in qualification?
He scored 635.4, improving his own Asian Games qualification record of 634.5 from Hangzhou 2023.
Who won silver and bronze in the individual final?
India’s Himanshu Dhillon won silver with 252.4 and Rudrankksh Patil took bronze with 230.9.
Who won the men’s 10m air rifle team silver?
India’s Rudrankksh Patil, Himanshu Dhillon and Parth Mane combined for 1,890.1 to take silver.
Who won the team bronze?
South Korea finished third with 1,884.2.
Where was the Asian Games shooting competition held?
The men’s 10m air rifle competition was staged at the Aichi Prefectural General Shooting Gallery in Toyota, Japan.
World Record
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