India’s star athlete Rudrankksh Patil revealed he wasn’t confident before winning two medals in the men’s 10m air rifle at the Asian Games 2026.
Published: September 21, 2026, 7:02 PM IST
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Rudrankksh Patil opens up on double medals in the Asian Games 2026
Day 2 of the Asian Games was completed, where all the Indian athletes showed an impressive performanceTheir hard work and excellence helped them to bag some more medals on Day 1.
The Indian athletes kicked-off Day 2 with a silver medal in the men’s 10m Air Rifle team event, where the trio of Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil, Parth Rakesh Mane and Himanshu Dhillon won silver with a score of 1890.1.
Meanwhile, in the men’s 10m Air Rifle individual final, Himanshu Dhillon and Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil finished second and third spot in the event.
In an exclusive interview with India.com, Rudrankksh Balasaheb Patil opened up on his performance in the finals, and he also revealed what was going through his mind during the elimination stages and how he strategize his last shots.
“So when we started with the finals, I had a strong start, which gave me confidence that today is my dayI’m doing really wellBut at the same time, because I was rank one for a pretty long time and this year, I haven’t played that many finals.”
After winning the medal, he revealed that he wasn’t very confident to play at the Asian Games 2026“So when I came into this finals, I wasn’t so very confidentBut we had a lot of training finals, which boosted my confidence a bit for the finals, which made me feel homely at the final range also,” he said.
“But as I was climbing up, knowing that I am at the gold medal position, it’s going very wellSo that started building up a bit of nervousness inside of meAnd I think I could have handled it a bit betterBut here we are with a bronze, so I’m happy with that also,” he added.
He also opened up on the lesson he learnt from the Asian Games 2026, which he will remember in the upcoming Olympics.
“So, believe in miracles is first thing which comes to my mindThat even if you have a long night, a day will always come, the sun will always riseKeep on moving forward, be patient, trust the process, trust the support staff, trust in your ability that, you know, you can bring it out at the right time, at the right moment when you need it the most.”
“Everything doesn’t go as planned, but everything is meant to happenThat’s what I believe nowAnd, yeah, that’s all I would say,” he added.
He shared the athletes’ routines and problems they faced regarding the accommodation in Japan, before the Asian Games“RightSo, while we were going from Bhopal to Delhi and from Delhi to Japan via Hong Kong, so it was a long travel for us from Bhopal to DelhiOur flight had some issues and we did an emergency landing in Jaipur.”
“From there, we took a car to six hours bus and then we went to DelhiNext day, we had our flightIn the evening, we took the flightWe came to JapanIt was almost five hours flight to Hong Kong, six hours, seven hours halt in Hong KongAnd then again, from Hong Kong to Japan, it was five hours.”
“And after reaching over here, within five minutes, everything was clearedWe went to the welcoming centreIt took us three hours to wait for the bus over thereAt 1 or 2, 2 or 3 a.m., we started leaving for the hotelWe reached the hotel around 4, 3.30 or something like it took us 45 minutes, 50 minutesAfter reaching the hotel, we realised that the hotel which we have booked is not our hotel.”
“We only have a couple of rooms over there and that was supposed to be the best hotelAnd our coaches were fighting over there that if you can give us the confirmation for the best hotel, then why, how are you shifting us to some other hotel? So, apparently, they had that village thing that one hotel was the main hotel and everything, every other hotels were connected to that hotelAnd whatever room was empty, they were supposed to give us in that way.”
“It did not work in reservation’s waySo, it was quite disappointing to know that, but we had a hotel beside the main hotel and our coaches promptly decided that every shoot, the rooms are very small.”
