Neeru Dhanda chose guns over dolls, feared the shotgun and then shot for Asian Games gold

Long before she found her mark, Neeru Dhanda was drawn to guns.

When other girls her age wanted dolls, she was drawn to tractors and guns. There was a wooden tractor, a larger iron one, and a toy that shot bullets. What she remembers were the things she chose.

Years later, when she finally got her hands on a real gun, the reaction was somewhat different.

The gun belonged to her cousin Lakshay Sheoran’s father, Somveer, and it was an old Indian double-barreled shotgun that the family had once kept for shooting pigeons in the fields. One day they take Neera to the farm and decide to see if she can handle it. The tin plate became the target. Two or three shots were fired.

The sound scared her.

She was still young. The weapon in her hands was heavy, the crack of the 7.5mm bullets was unfamiliar and startling. She panicked and dropped it.

“I got scared,” she recalled in an interview with IndiaToday.in.

It’s an unlikely start for the woman who years later stood in the pouring rain at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games and calmly smashed 28 of 30 targets to claim a historic gold medal.

In Aichi-Nagoya, Neeru ended India’s 48-year wait for an individual trap gold. Earlier in the day, she won the women’s team silver with Aashima Ahlawat and Manisha Keer. She returned to the range the following day and won another gold with Kynan Chenai in the mixed team event.

Three medals. Two gold ones. Silver. But the numbers only tell the end of the story.

48 YEARS LATER, INDIA HAS ITS GOLD AGAIN! Neeru Dhanda reflects on the thinking behind her historic gold and the years of hard work that made this moment possible. Watch 20th Asian Games Aichi-Nagoya 2026 LIVE on Sony Sports Network and Sony LIV TV channels. #SonySportsNetwork #SonyLIV #AsianGames #AichiNagoya2026 #BaarBaarBharatHarBaarBharat — Sony Sports Network (@SonySportsNetwk) September 30, 2026

For most of her journey, Neeru was not chasing Asian Games records. She was trying to find a way to build a better life for her family.

‘I HAD TO DO IT’

Neeru ends her Asian Games campaign with 2 golds and a silver (PTI Photo)

Neeru grew up in Sangatpura, a village in Haryana’s Jind district, in a family that could not afford the luxuries associated with such an expensive sport as shotgun shooting. Her father is a farmer. The family owns a modest amount of agricultural land, while her mother Sudesh Devi earned extra by selling buffalo milk. The extent of these financial constraints was still evident the morning Neeru won her Asian Games gold: her mother was on her way to collect the family ration when she heard the news.

Shooting was not an obvious career choice.

In fact, Neeru says that she wasn’t particularly good at studies. She didn’t even grow up dreaming of becoming an elite athlete. Her first sports association was with kabaddi.

Then came Lakshay. Her cousin took up trap shooting and won a silver medal at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta. Neeru didn’t know much about shooting at that time.

“My cousin brother Lakshay also came on the trip. He started shooting. I saw him and thought he was doing some modeling shooting. Then I saw his medal from the 2018 Asian Games. That’s when I was actually scared. I thought how can I ever shoot a bird? But when Lakshay won that medal, it inspired me a lot,” said Neeru.

The inspiration was not immediately glamorous. It was practical and improvised. Neeru started practicing with Lakshay’s weapon and spending time with his family. She was shooting cans. Somveer, a former national wrestler, helped her get used to the backlash and demands of the sport. Finally, Lakshay’s family took her for trials at the Madhya Pradesh State Shooting Academy in Bhopal.

The Academy changed the possibilities.

In 2019, Neeru moved to Bhopal. Access to guns, ammunition, training and a proper training environment meant that shooting was no longer something she could just experiment with using someone else’s equipment.

But leaving home at 17 or 18 was a decision she didn’t accept wholeheartedly.

“Leaving home at 17 or 18 is not easy,” she said. “You’re not mature enough to make such big decisions. It was a risk, but I took it because I knew I had to do it no matter what.”

He remembers his first days at the academy vividly.

“When I joined MP Academy, I cried a lot. I even threw my bag in front of the academy. When I first joined, I felt like I was sent to prison. I was very young and when my family left me there, I cried a lot,” she said.

Her family brought her there, but once they left, she was alone in a new environment, living far from home and learning to navigate a different family and a different life. Lakshay’s mother, Romila Kaur, became an important source of support.

But the decision was bigger than the shooting.

“I had to do it,” Neeru said.

“My family’s condition was not such that I could simply stop. If I didn’t, there was no one else who would.”

He doesn’t describe it as pressure.

“I consider myself lucky. I was born into a family where I could develop and build a good life for myself. If I had been born into a different family, even with more comfort, I might not have been able to develop in the same way.”

There is a certain harshness in the way he talks about those years. He doesn’t romanticize them. He simply accepts that something had to be sacrificed.

Growing up, she didn’t spend much time wondering if she was missing out. There were no casual trips for burgers, pizza or golgappas. If there were rotis at home, she ate them and left. Training, traveling and competitions became her life.

“If you want to achieve something, nature asks you to pay a price,” she said. “Whatever you want in the future, you have to give something up first.”

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Photo by PTI

The economy of shooting made this sacrifice even more significant. The shotgun is expensive. Guns cost money. Ammo costs money. Training and travel costs money.

Neeru’s early career was largely dependent on the support systems she had access to, rather than her family being able to fund everything themselves.

She remembers receiving Rs 10,000 and 120 rounds of support from Khelo India in the early stages of her career. The TOP support Lakshay received also helped her when she was starting out. She used bullets that Lakshay had obtained through the Sports Ministry plan. In the end, she became a TOP athlete herself.

He talks about that support almost as a lesson in responsibility.

“I started through SAI and Khelo India. In the beginning I was getting Rs 10,000 as pocket money and 120 rounds. That’s where it started,” she said.

“Khelo India provides very good support for beginners. But if a player gets Rs 10,000, it should not be treated as money to spend on personal needs, food, clothes or entertainment. You should put it into your training. Collect the money you need, buy equipment and improve. That’s what you should do with it.”

When she first realized that shooting could become a career, her goal was not to become an Asian Games champion.

“I started with work as a goal,” she says.

The medals came later. Her first major endorsement came at the 2022 National Games in Gujarat. It was then that she began to believe that she could really become a good shooter.

By this time, the road had taken another turn. The Indian Army also became a part of it. Neeru struggled for years to secure her place, facing limited vacancies and other obstacles. She says there were even questions about her height, but people in the system fought for her selection.

Today, he serves as Naib Subedar in the Military Police Corps and trains in the Army’s Rifle Unit in Mhow. The kid who once needed someone else’s gun now had a career, a coach, a team, and a path. And then she started collecting results.

She won gold in the 2025 Asian Championships. In July 2026, she became the first Indian woman to win an individual gold at the ISSF Trap World Championships in Lonato, Italy.

However, the biggest test awaited. 10 days before the individual final, Neeru was discharged from hospital following an infection that sidelined her from training for around three and a half weeks. She arrived in Nagoya with her preparation seriously disruptedthen stepped onto a rain-soaked range and shot 28 out of 30 to win the gold. She would leave Japan with two golds and a silver.

FLAG BEARER

Neeru Dhanda was India’s flag bearer at the closing ceremony of the Asian Games (PTI Photo)

Yet when Neeru talks about the Asian Games, it’s not the gold that gets her most emotional. This is what came next.

She didn’t know she would be India’s flag bearer at the closing ceremony until she landed back in India. The contingent arrived late at night, a welcome followed, and she returned home around two or three in the morning. She had to leave for Japan again the next evening.

“That was an even bigger feeling than the medal,” she said.

“Many athletes win medals. There have been champions before. Raja Randhir Singh was also a champion. But the journey I have taken in life to carry the Indian flag has been a huge achievement for me.”

The significance of this moment dates back to a conversation with her mother around 2017-18, when Neeru was still trying to figure out where the shooting might take her. She asked her mother where she wanted to see her. The answer was bigger than a job or a certain career.

“She told me, ‘I want to see you carry the Indian flag. I want to see you win gold in the Olympics’.”

At the time, Neeru was still a teenager trying to find her feet in a sport where every shot counted. Now she lived one part of that dream. He wants another opportunity not only for himself, but also for the athletes he sees behind him.

“I want God to give me this opportunity again and again,” she said.

“And the athletes that are coming in that are working hard and fighting, I want them to get that strength and experience that feeling as well.”

There is no hint of her arrival in her voice. The Asian Games extended the way forward.
She talks about Mansher Singh, the coach who has been with her for most of the journey. He has never won an individual Asian Games gold in shotgun. Now the athlete he helped build has done it.

“He had that goal too,” Neeru said.

“When I won it was special for him because his own athlete and his favorite athlete won.

He laughs talking about Lakshay’s reaction. She showed him the medal via video call while he was at the mall. He was delighted.

“He said, ‘Now I’ve won.’ I had silver and he said, ‘You have gold. My honey is here too. I consider it my own.’

At 26, he can look back on a teenager who left home with no guarantee that anything would come of it. What would she say to today’s nineteen-year-old?

“I look back at this version of myself and say, ‘You made the right decision.’ At the time, the struggle felt like it was just about getting a job so I could provide a good life for my family. Now, all those struggles are covered by these things.”

She talks about the Olympic champions who came before her and wonders how much more they had to endure. Compared to them, she says, she faced very little.

“I have many goals now,” she said.

“I want to win prizes and I also want to become an Olympic champion.”

For now, however, he refuses to live too far ahead.

“The journey has only just begun,” he says. “We don’t think too far ahead. We focus on what we have to do today and how we have to prepare for the next competition.”

At 26, Neeru is already looking ahead. The Olympic gold her mother once envisioned for her is now her own ambition.

Somewhere along the way, she grew from a little girl who chose playthings over dolls and threw away the first real one, to a woman who learned what to do when the real ones went out.

– The end