Asian Games 2026: ‘It felt like a normal competition,’ Vidarsa Vinod says after winning silver

Nagoya: For some athletes, the Asian Games can feel like an entirely different world -- bigger crowds, bigger names, bigger expectations and the weight of a continental stage but for Vidarsa Vinod, it was simply another shooting competition.

The Kerala shooter may have arrived at the Asian Games later than some of India's shooting stars, making her continental debut at 27, but she showed on Sunday that she is perfectly at home under the bright lights of the big stage.

Vidarsa combined with Elavenil Valarivan and Sonam Uttam Maskar to win the silver medal in the women's 10m air rifle team event, opening India's shooting campaign at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games with a medal.


For someone making her first appearance at the Games, it was an impressive introduction. Yet Vidarsa, who narrowly missed out on an individual final after finishing 12th in qualification, insisted that she never felt weighed down by the occasion.

"Nothing like I had a lot of expectations and everything, like Asian Games, big games, something. But I didn't feel any different. It felt like a normal competition, only different people," she said.

"It's just the name Asian Games. Rest felt the same."

That calmness perhaps explains how she was able to recover from the disappointment of missing the individual final. Vidarsa admitted that there were moments when her qualification round slipped away from her hands.

"I can say that I was a bit disappointed. There were two series where I was a little off. The score was pretty down in those two series and I was disappointed," she said.

But giving up was never an option.

"I am feeling happy because I was not ready to give up."

It is an attitude that has defined a shooting journey that began almost by accident.

Vidarsa was an NCC cadet while studying at St Mary's College in Kerala when she got her first opportunity to try shooting in 2018.

"That's how I started shooting," she recalled.

It was only a year later that she began to believe the sport could take her somewhere.

"Then in 2019, I realised that I had talent in shooting. I started shooting as a professional."

Her progression, however, was hardly overnight. She moved to Delhi in 2022 to train and only made her international debut in 2025 at the Asian Championships in Kazakhstan, where she won her first international medal.

She then began steadily establishing herself, including producing the highest qualification score as a Ranking Points Only (RPO) shooter.

Now, barely a year into her international career, Vidarsa has added an Asian Games medal to her collection.

What makes her achievement more striking is that the 10m air rifle is still a relatively new discipline for her.

"I started training in 10m air rifle only two months ago. My first competition with this 10m rifle was the World Cup in China recently," she said.

Her primary event, however, remains the 50m rifle three positions, an event she approaches with considerably greater familiarity.

"3P is my main event. So, I have no doubt about the competition. I am fully prepared for it," she said.

With the 50m three positions event coming up, Vidarsa is already looking forward rather than dwelling on what might have been in the 10m individual event.

She had deliberately prioritised 10m training ahead of the Asian Games and had not spent much time practising with the 50m rifle.

"From tomorrow I will start my training. No nervousness, nothing. It is more easy for me doing 50m."

That confidence is backed by familiarity. She has been using her current 50m rifle for almost a year and believes the technical aspects of the event are already well settled.

"All the positions and everything is sorted because it's been almost one year I'm using this new rifle," she said.

For Vidarsa, the Asian Games experience is also another step towards the bigger target -- the Olympic qualification cycle.

The World Championships will offer another opportunity to test herself against the best, and she intends to carry forward the lessons from Nagoya.

"The way I perform here, the way I manage the pressure -- even though this is a big competition, I was not feeling that this is a big competition. I was like, this is also a normal competition," she said.

There were technical lessons too, she added, which she plans to carry into the World Championships.

For now, though, Vidarsa has already made her first Asian Games count.

She arrived without the familiarity of a Manu Bhaker or the reputation that often accompanies an established international shooter. She leaves her first day with a medal, a taste of the continental stage and, perhaps most importantly, the belief that she belongs here.

And for a shooter who still considers herself relatively new to the international circuit, that could be the most significant takeaway of all.