7-time national champion, 36-year-old shot putter Manpreet Kaur wins her 1st Asian Games medal with daughter in stands

36-year-old shot putter Manpreet Kaur claimed her maiden Asian Games 2026 medal with her best throw of 17.17m. Manpreet's sixth attempt sealed a bronze medal finish.

China's Jianyuan's season best throw of 19.40m earned her a gold medal. It was a double podium for China as Linru Zhang secured a silver medal with 18.14m throw. 

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Another Indian at the event was Krishna Jayasankar Menon. She finished fifth with a 16.57m throw.

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Manpreet won the bronze medal with her 15-year-old daughter in the stands in Nagoya. This was Manpreet's first medal at a major event.

Earlier this year, she produced a throw of 17.49m but missed the bronze medal by a whisker as she finished fourth. In the previous edition of Asian Games, she had finished fifth with a 16.25m throw. Her best throw of 2026 (17.75m) came in the National Inter-State Athletics Championships.

Manpreet 3rd to win Asiad shot put medal

Manpreet is India's third women’s shot putter to win an Asian medal. In 1951, Barbara Webster, an Anglo-Indian from Mumbai (them Bombay), won a bronze medal. More than seven decades later, in 2023, Kiran Baliyan had won a bronze medal.

Manpreet is a seven-time national champion. She had participated in the 2016 Rio Olympics where her best throw of 17.06m in the qualification could not secure her a spot in the final. She finished 23rd in the qualification round which featured 36 athletes.