Nagoya/New Delhi, Sept. 21 -- India's wait for a gold medal continued at the Asian Games on Monday, with three shooting medals taking the country's tally to six, while Suchika Tariyal secured a historic bronze in mixed martial arts after a heartbreaking semifinal exit.

India now has four silver and two bronze medals. Shooting accounted for three of Monday's medals, with Himanshu Dhillon winning silver and Rudrankksh Patil taking bronze in the men's 10m air rifle individual event. The duo, along with 18-year-old Parth Mane, also claimed silver in the team competition.

China again dominated the event, with Sheng Lihao, Changhong Zhang and Sihan Ma combining for 1899.0 points to win gold and set a new world record. Their score bettered the previous mark of 1898.4 set in Cairo last year.

The team silver brought attention to Mane, a former junior world champion, and 21-year-old Dhillon, who is still adapting to the senior circuit.

In MMA, 36-year-old Suchika became India's first Asian Games medallist in the sport by taking bronze in the traditional women's 60kg category. However, she missed out on a place in the final after her semifinal against Singapore's Hui Hoon Teo ended in a draw.

Suchika weighed 700 grams more than Teo during the morning weigh-in. Under the technical rules, the lighter competitor advances when a bout ends level.

The result left Suchika in tears despite securing a historic medal. The athlete from Kiloi village in Haryana's Rohtak district is a 2024 world champion in jiu-jitsu and had represented India in judo at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and kurash at the 2022 Asian Games.

"This is more than my life. I will never forget that I came to Japan and got a medal for my country. I can now happily die," she told PTI after regaining her composure.

There were also strong results in other disciplines. India's women's hockey team thrashed Indonesia 17-1, while the men's badminton team defeated Bangladesh 3-0 to reach the quarterfinals. Lakshya Sen, K Srikanth and Ayush Shetty won their singles matches.

Sumit Kundu advanced with a comfortable win in the 70kg boxing category. India's women's and men's table tennis teams also reached the quarterfinals with identical 3-0 victories over Pakistan.

Swimming, however, remained a disappointment. Two-time Olympian Srihari Nataraj finished 10th and last in the 50m backstroke final in 25.52 seconds, slower than his 25.37-second heat timing.

In soft tennis, Aadhya Tiwari and Jay Meena lost 2-5 to the Philippines' Christy Sanosa and Sherwin Ray Nuguit in the mixed doubles round of 16.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.