Deaflympics 2025: Deshwal, Pranjali clinch gold in mixed team air pistol

Abhinav Deshwal and Pranjali Prashant Dhumal clinched the gold medal in the 10m Air Pistol event, while Kushagra Singh Rajawat won bronze in the 50m Rifle Prone competition as Indian shooters continued their fine run at the 25th Deaflympics here on Wednesday.

The Indian shooters have won 11 medals so far in the competition.

Deshwal and Pranjali notched up a dominating 16-6 win over Ya-Ju Kao and Ming-Jui Hsu of Chinese Taipei to finish on top.

In the second event of the day, Rajawat won bronze with a final score of 224.3.

Ukraine’s Dmytro Petrenko won the gold by shooting 251.0, breaking the Deaf World and Olympic Records. Colin Mueller of Germany won the silver medal with a score of 245.4.

Deshwal and Pranjali maintained their commanding position from the start of the gold medal match and never gave their opponents any chance for a comeback.

The pair had earlier equalled their own Deaf World and Olympic record in qualification.

ALSO READ: Deaflympics 2025 — Anuya, Pranjali seal gold and silver in 10m Air Pistol

They shot a combined score of 569-20x with Abhinav firing 287-12x (97,95,95) and Pranjali 282-8x (95,94,93) to finish on top in qualification. Both shooters had also won silver medals in the individual event on Monday.

The second Indian pair consisting of women’s individual champion Anuya Prasad and Rudar Vinod Kumar could only manage a seventh-place finish in qualification with a combined score of 553-10x.

Anuya shot 280-5x (93, 91, 96) and Rudar 273-5x (92, 90, 91). Mahla Samiee and Bijan Ghaffari of Iran won the bronze medal overcoming Ukraine’s Sofiia Olenych and Oleksandr Kolodii.

Mahit Sandhu and Natasha Joshi will be in action on Thursday in 50m 3 Positions women’s event.

Mahit has already won a gold and silver in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed team and individual events respectively.

(with inputs from PTI)

Published on Nov 19, 2025