4 min readMay 11, 2026 12:01 AM IST
In what was a daunting qualification followed by a rainy spell in the final, the Indian trap mixed team of Vivaan Kapoor and Neeru Dhanda claimed the country’s second medal in the event in a ISSF World Cup since the event was reintroduced in Olympics with the bronze medal in the ISSF World Cup Shotgun at Almaty, Kazakhstan.
The Indian pair, which had finished second in qualification, won the bronze medal in a field including the Italian team of Paris Olympics silver medalist Silvana Stanco and two-time Olympian and 2022 mixed team world champion Mauro De Filippis and 2022 world championships mixed team runner-up Kun-Pi Yang and Wan-Yu Liu of Chinese Taipei.
With London Olympics double trap champion and now Indian foreign coach Peter Wilson watching from the coaches’ corner, the Indian pair gave a tough fight.
“In the qualification as well as final, both me and Neeru were focussing on our process. We were not thinking about whom we were competing against. Yes, some of them are legends in the sport but I personally thought of shooting to my strength and not worrying about whom I am competing against. We shot our best,” shared Kapoor while speaking with The Indian Express from Almaty.
Qualification challenge and final
After the second round in qualification, Kapoor, 2024 World Cup final silver medallist, and Dhanda, the reigning Asian champion, were tied fifth along with three other teams. With only four spots available for the final under the new format, the Indian pair shot a perfect round of 25 each in the last round to qualify at the second spot behind Filippis/Stanco and ahead of Yang/Liu and China’s Kunming Bai and Xinyue Fan.
“The final was not a true representation of the conditions. What the teams had been through the second and third round in qualification was almost of biblical rain proportions (catastrophic ). It meant that both Vivaan and Neeru had to grit their teeth and get on with the shooting. Here the bar was very high and to score a perfect round defined the competition for me and it also shows that they both are perfectly capable to go toe to toe with the best,” shared Wilson while talking with The Indian Express.
Kapoor hit all his five targets and Dhanda hit four to end on nine points, one point behind leaders Yang/Liu after the first round. Kapoor again hit all the five targets with Dhanda missing two as they ended on 17 points behind Yang/Liu’s score of 19 with Filippis/Stanco with 14 points and Bai/Fan eliminated at the fourth spot with 13 points. With Filippis/Stanco hitting all the ten targets in the third round, the Indian pair hit seven targets with Kapoor missing one and Dhanda two. The Indian pair was tied with the Italians but bowed out due to the lower bib number.
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“Spending time with a legend like Peter Wilson in the camp has meant that he shares his vast knowledge of range conditions as well the different angles. Due to the US Iran war, I had not been training with my personal coach Khaled Almudhaf of Kuwait but I kept sharing training videos with him,” added Kapoor.
Target LA
With the trap mixed team event returning to the LA Olympics, the focus will be on earning the quota places. “ I hope we use this medal as a springboard for success towards the back end of the year, when LA Olympics individual quotas are available. So the focus has to be individual as well mixed team events to earn the individual quotas as well keeping the mixed team form consistent,” added Wilson.
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
