Neeru Dhanda has won two gold medals in two days at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games: the individual trap title on 29 September and the mixed team title alongside Kynan Chenai on Wednesday. The 26-year-old shooter, who also claimed team silver, became the first woman from India to win individual trap gold at the Games and the first Indian to take the title since Randhir Singh in 1978. She hit 28 of the 30 targets in the individual final; in the mixed event, the pair scored 34. Her mother, however, heard about the first gold far from the shooting range, while walking to the shop where she collects food through her family’s assistance programme.
Sudesh Devi was carrying the card identifying her family as eligible for support for people below the poverty line when her basic keypad phone rang. A stranger told her about the victory. “We don’t have a TV or smartphone. I hadn’t been able to follow the news but knew last night that Neeru was to compete,” she told ‘The Times of India’. She collected the food and returned to her one-room home in Sangatpura, in the state of Haryana, still struggling to believe it. When journalists arrived, she was washing kitchen utensils. “You are telling me it is indeed gold? My Neeru has won gold?” she asked, before raising her soap-covered arms in celebration. Neighbours soon began arriving.
From kabaddi to a borrowed shotgun
Neeru was the second of three children and played kabaddi, a team contact sport, at school and state level. In 2018, she saw the celebrations after her cousin Lakshay Sheoran won Asian Games silver and said she wanted to try shooting too. Her father, Suresh Dhanda, owned two acres of land, around 0.8 hectares, and some livestock. “We could not afford a gun or the training expenses,” her mother told ‘The Indian Express’. A year later, Lakshay and his father, Somveer Sheoran, a former national-level wrestler and a relative of Sudesh, helped her begin training. Lakshay lent her the shotgun she used to get started.
Before shooting at clay targets, Neeru aimed at a small sheet of tin beside a pond. “My uncle took me to a pond and asked me to shoot a small sheet of tin. I also told myself, ‘Let’s see what I can do.’ I passed that test,” she recalled in ‘The Times of India’. She also practised shooting at tin cans on Somveer’s farm. Initially, the shotgun’s recoil caused injuries to her shoulder and chin. “As she shot more, she learnt how to balance her body and posture,” Lakshay explained. She stayed with her relatives in Faridabad while training at the Karni Singh Shooting Range in Delhi, then passed the selection trials for the Madhya Pradesh Shooting Academy in Bhopal. There, she could use guns without having to buy them and receive regular coaching.
A house before a wedding
Her mother sold buffalo milk to help support Neeru’s sporting career. The family continued to back her, although some neighbours insisted they should find her a husband. “I am glad that we did not listen to them. We want our daughter to progress further,” Sudesh told ‘Hindustan Times’. Suresh also recalled the financial difficulties and the help they received from relatives: “We had neither the money nor the resources for this sport. Lakshay helped arrange everything. My daughter even practised with his gun,” he told ‘The Times of India’. The borrowed shotgun, accommodation with relatives and equipment provided by the academy enabled her to continue.
Neeru chose to put marriage on hold because she first wanted to improve her parents’ living conditions. “She had promised me that she would first build a good house for the family and start her own family only after fulfilling that promise,” her mother said. Sudesh also recalled how her daughter responded to comments from villagers: “Ma, keep faith in me and ignore what the world says.” In the same conversation with ‘The Times of India’, she defended her decision to support her: “If God had given me another daughter, I would have welcomed her too. Today, daughters are proving that they can be at the forefront of everything.”
Training and a return to the range
Dhanda now serves in the Indian Army with the rank of naib subedar, a junior commissioned officer. In July, she won her first International Shooting Sport Federation -ISSF- World Cup gold in Lonato, Italy. In Bhopal, she works with Mansher Singh, who emphasises confidence and consistency in her development. “We worked on the pre-shot routine and visualisation, along with breathing patterns. We got her gun stock changed two years ago and since 2024, Neeru has been shooting very well,” he explained. Adapting the gun went alongside work on her posture and movement, following those early sessions when she struggled to control the recoil.
Her preparations for the Games were interrupted by an infection that required hospital treatment before she travelled to Japan. It was not her first hospital admission: in 2020, she had suffered a severe case of COVID-19. This time, Mansher stayed in touch to encourage her through the illness. “She told us not to worry and that she would return with a medal. She has kept her word,” her mother recalled. In the individual final, rain falling on her hands added another challenge. Neeru explained that she kept returning her attention to her routine and that the result had required more effort than it appeared: “This was not easy. I made it look easy so that young shooters and other Indian athletes training in shooting can go on to win gold, thinking that if Neeru can do it, so can we.”
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