Sikkim shooter Laxuman Adhikari won a bronze medal in the Master Men's 10m Air Pistol Individual category at the 13th North East Zone Shooting Championship 2026, held at the Kahilipara Shooting Range in Guwahati from August 25 to 30 — the first medal any Sikkim shooter has ever won at the North East Zonal level. The championship, organised under the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI), also saw Meghalaya's Anthony D. Marak claim two medals, including a gold in the 10-metre pistol event with a score of 370 out of 400.
Background
The North East Zone Shooting Championship is an annual regional meet bringing together shooters from across India's Northeastern states to compete in 10-metre air rifle and 10-metre air pistol disciplines, serving as both a standalone regional title and a qualifying pathway toward national-level shooting championships. Guwahati's Kahilipara Shooting Range has hosted the event on multiple past occasions — the 9th edition, held there in September 2022, saw host state Assam dominate with 55 medals (24 gold, 17 silver, 14 bronze) across an eight-team field, reflecting the advantage Assam has historically enjoyed as the region's shooting hub with the most developed training infrastructure and range access.
For smaller Northeastern states like Sikkim, competing at this level has often meant sending athletes who are unlikely to reach the podium against more established shooting programmes in Assam, Manipur or Meghalaya — states with longer institutional histories in the sport and greater access to ranges, coaching, and equipment. Sikkim's shooting programme is organised through the Sikkim Rifle Association, which fielded an 11-member contingent (eight pistol shooters, three rifle shooters) at this year's championship under team president Sanjay Budhathoki, team manager Sumit Sharma, and head coach Rohit Soni. Ahead of the event, the association described its participation as "a significant milestone in the development of competitive shooting sports" in the state, framing the trip to Guwahati as part of a longer-term effort to build a structured competitive pathway for young Sikkimese shooters rather than a one-off appearance.
Shooting sport in India operates on a tiered competitive ladder, with district and state-level meets feeding into zonal championships like this one, which in turn feed into national championships and, eventually, the talent pool from which India's international squads are drawn. For a Northeastern state, performing well at the zonal level is the first real test of whether a state sporting association's junior development work is translating into competitive results, since the zonal championship is typically the first tier where a shooter faces competition from outside their home state. The National Rifle Association of India, which governs and organises shooting sport nationally, structures these zonal championships specifically to surface athletes worth tracking for national junior and senior squads, meaning strong performances here carry weight well beyond regional bragging rights.
Guwahati's Kahilipara Shooting Range itself has become something of a fixture for this event, having previously hosted at least the 9th edition in 2022 and now the 13th in 2026, suggesting Assam's shooting association and the city's range infrastructure have established themselves as the de facto home venue for Northeast zonal shooting competition — a pattern common in Indian regional sport, where the state with the best facilities tends to host repeatedly rather than the event rotating evenly among all participating states.
Key Details
Adhikari's bronze in the Master Men's 10m Air Pistol Individual category is historic specifically because no Sikkim shooter had previously medalled at this Zonal-level championship in any of its prior editions. The achievement came in the "Master" age-category division of air pistol shooting, a category typically reserved for more experienced, older competitors rather than junior shooters — suggesting Sikkim's breakthrough came through sustained individual development rather than a junior prodigy's rapid rise. Air pistol shooting, unlike many Olympic sports, allows competitors to remain internationally competitive well into middle age given its emphasis on precision, stillness and mental control over raw physical speed or power, which is part of why "Master" divisions — typically covering shooters roughly 50 years and older — remain a meaningful competitive category rather than a purely ceremonial one at championships like this.
Beyond Adhikari's medal, two more Sikkim shooters — Anu Chettri in the 10m air pistol event and Tshering Yangden Bhutia in the 10m air rifle event — qualified to advance to the National Shooting Championship, meaning Sikkim's contingent leaves Guwahati with tangible gains on two fronts: a historic first zonal medal, and a pipeline of shooters now advancing to national-level competition.
Meghalaya's contingent had a stronger overall showing at the meet. Anthony D. Marak won gold in the 10-metre pistol (MQS category) with a score of 370 out of 400, and added a bronze in the 50-metre pistol men's event, while fellow Meghalaya shooter Rakku D. Momin won gold in the men's 10-metre pistol (NR category) event. Between them, the two North Garo Hills-linked shooters brought home two golds and a bronze for Meghalaya, a strong showing for a state that, like Sikkim, does not have Assam's scale of shooting infrastructure but has built a smaller, evidently effective pipeline of competitive pistol shooters. North Garo Hills, a hill district in western Meghalaya with its headquarters at Resubelpara, is not typically associated with shooting sport in national coverage — most Meghalaya sporting attention nationally centres on archery and football — making two zonal gold-calibre pistol shooters emerging from the same district a notable, if under-reported, local sporting development in its own right.
The championship's full, state-by-state overall medal tally for this 2026 edition was not available in the sources reviewed for this report, though based on the historical pattern from earlier editions hosted at the same Kahilipara range, host state Assam would typically be expected to lead the overall medal count given its larger contingent size and home-range familiarity.
The scoring detail available for Marak's gold-medal performance — 370 out of a possible 400 in the 10-metre pistol MQS event — offers a useful benchmark for readers unfamiliar with competitive shooting scoring: air pistol events are typically scored across a fixed number of shots, each worth up to 10.9 points on a decimal scale depending on precision, meaning a score in the high 360s to low 370s out of 400 represents a consistently accurate performance across the full course of fire rather than a few standout shots offsetting weaker ones. That consistency is generally what separates zonal-level medal contenders from the rest of the field in pistol disciplines, where a single unsteady shot can cost several points relative to a rifle event's typically tighter scoring spread. Zonal-level scores like Marak's are best read as a regional development benchmark rather than a world-class one — the exact kind of intermediate marker a zonal championship exists to produce, sitting between a shooter's early club-level scores and the considerably higher totals expected at national and international competition.
At a Glance
| Athlete | State | Event | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Laxuman Adhikari | Sikkim | Master Men's 10m Air Pistol Individual | Bronze — Sikkim's first-ever NE Zonal medal |
| Anthony D. Marak | Meghalaya | 10m Pistol (MQS) | Gold — score 370/400 |
| Anthony D. Marak | Meghalaya | 50m Pistol (Men's) | Bronze |
| Rakku D. Momin | Meghalaya | 10m Pistol (NR, Men's) | Gold |
| Anu Chettri | Sikkim | 10m Air Pistol | Qualified for National Shooting Championship |
| Tshering Yangden Bhutia | Sikkim | 10m Air Rifle | Qualified for National Shooting Championship |
Local Impact
For Sikkim's shooting community, Adhikari's bronze is likely to matter well beyond the medal itself. A state's first-ever medal at a regional championship often functions as a proof point that can unlock further institutional support — state sports department funding, better range access, more structured junior programmes — because it demonstrates to administrators that continued investment in the sport can produce results rather than remaining purely developmental. The Sikkim Rifle Association's own framing of this year's participation as a "milestone" suggests the association itself is likely to use this result to advocate for expanded support ahead of future editions, and it would not be unusual for a state association in this position to seek a follow-up meeting with the state sports department or a state government sports council in the weeks after a championship like this, using the medal and the two national qualifications together as its central evidence.
For Meghalaya, the North Garo Hills origin of both medal-winning shooters — Marak and Momin — highlights a specific regional pocket within the state that appears to be producing competitive pistol shooters, which could draw attention and resources toward shooting infrastructure in that district specifically if the pattern continues in future editions. For host state Assam, the championship's return to the Kahilipara range continues to reinforce Guwahati's role as the Northeast's default venue for shooting sport, a status that comes with tangible development and tourism-adjacent benefits — visiting contingents, officials, and family members from across six states spending days in the city during the event, alongside the recurring investment case for maintaining and upgrading a range that hosts a marquee regional event on a roughly annual basis.
Family and community support structures also matter more in a sport like shooting than in team sports with larger local fan bases, since individual shooters typically train for years in relative obscurity before a single zonal or national result brings any public recognition. Adhikari's bronze, and the two Sikkim qualifiers' progression to nationals, are likely to be covered prominently in Sikkim's local press precisely because opportunities for state pride in an individual, non-cricket, non-football sport are comparatively rare — most Northeastern sporting narratives in national media centre on football, boxing, or athletics, making a shooting story like this one a notable departure from the region's more commonly covered disciplines.
The championship's timing also places it in a broader late-2026 calendar of Northeast sporting activity that has kept regional athletes and administrators busy across multiple disciplines within the same fortnight — from football and cricket league finals to state-level taekwondo and speed skating results — a density of competitive activity that regional sports administrators have periodically pointed to as evidence of a maturing, increasingly professionalised sporting ecosystem across the Northeast, even in disciplines that receive comparatively little national media attention relative to their more visible neighbours in mainstream Indian sport. Local sports journalism in states like Sikkim and Meghalaya has increasingly leaned into these individual-sport results specifically because they offer something team-sport narratives from the region often cannot: a clearly attributable, single-athlete story that a state can claim entirely as its own, unshared with any other region or franchise.
More broadly, results like Sikkim's first medal and Meghalaya's two golds illustrate a competitive dynamic within Northeast Indian shooting sport where the field is not simply Assam versus everyone else — smaller states are demonstrating they can produce individual champions even without the broader institutional scale of the region's largest state, provided they invest consistently in specific athletes over multiple years.
There is a broader regional sports-development story here too, one that extends beyond shooting specifically: the Northeast's smaller states — Sikkim, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya — have in recent years increasingly punched above their population size in individual and combat sports at the national and international level, from boxing and archery to, now, shooting. Sikkim's population is under a million, among the smallest of any Indian state, which makes producing even a single zonal-level medal winner a meaningfully different achievement in per-capita terms than it would be for a larger state fielding a much bigger athlete pool. State sports departments across the region have periodically pointed to results like this as evidence that targeted investment in specific disciplines — rather than broad-based sports spending — can produce visible returns even from a small athlete base, provided the investment is sustained over several competitive cycles rather than concentrated around a single championship.
The visibility such results generate matters in a fundraising and policy sense too: state legislatures deciding annual sports budgets, and central government schemes like the Khelo India programme that allocate funding partly based on demonstrated athlete pipelines, both respond to documented results. A state association's ability to point to a specific, named athlete's specific, dated medal — rather than a general claim about programme quality — is precisely the kind of evidence that tends to move budget conversations, which is part of why associations like Sikkim's are quick to publicly frame results like Adhikari's bronze as milestones rather than letting them pass as routine competition outcomes.
What Happens Next
Anu Chettri and Tshering Yangden Bhutia now progress to the National Shooting Championship representing Sikkim, where they will compete against qualifiers from across India rather than just the Northeast zone — a considerably higher tier of competition that will be the next real test of how much Sikkim's shooting programme has actually closed the gap with more established states. Given the emphasis the Sikkim Rifle Association has placed on building "a structured platform for young and aspiring shooters," expect the state association to use this year's results in its case for continued or expanded funding as it prepares for the next zonal cycle.
For Meghalaya, Marak and Momin's results position them as likely core members of the state's squad for upcoming national qualifiers as well, while Assam — as both host and, historically, the region's dominant shooting power — will be looking to defend its overall standing when a complete state-by-state tally for this 13th edition is eventually published. No date for the next North East Zone Shooting Championship has been announced in the material reviewed for this report, though the event has historically run on a roughly annual cycle.
The two Sikkim qualifiers, Chettri and Bhutia, now face a compressed preparation window before the National Shooting Championship, where India's largest shooting states — including established powerhouses with dedicated national-level training academies and Olympic-standard ranges — will field considerably deeper squads than any Northeastern state can currently match. Their performance there will be a more meaningful indicator of Sikkim's actual competitive standing nationally than the zonal result alone, since qualifying for nationals and medalling at nationals represent very different tiers of achievement. Similarly, whether Meghalaya's Marak and Momin can carry their zonal form into national qualifiers will determine whether North Garo Hills' emerging pistol-shooting pipeline is producing athletes who can compete at India's highest domestic level, or whether their zonal results reflect a regional rather than national level of competitiveness. Neither Meghalaya's shooting association nor Assam's has publicly indicated, in material reviewed for this report, any specific policy response planned around this year's results, leaving the association-level follow-through — additional funding, expanded training camps, or simply business-as-usual until the next zonal cycle — as an open question worth revisiting closer to the next edition.
Frequently Asked Questions
What did Laxuman Adhikari achieve at the 2026 Northeast shooting championship?
He won a bronze medal in the Master Men's 10m Air Pistol Individual category at the 13th North East Zone Shooting Championship 2026 in Guwahati — the first medal ever won by a Sikkim shooter at this regional championship.
Where and when was the 13th North East Zone Shooting Championship held?
At the Kahilipara Shooting Range in Guwahati, Assam, from August 25 to 30, 2026, organised under the National Rifle Association of India.
Which Meghalaya shooters won medals at the championship?
Anthony D. Marak won gold in the 10-metre pistol (MQS) event with a score of 370/400 and bronze in the 50-metre pistol men's event; Rakku D. Momin won gold in the men's 10-metre pistol (NR) event.
Did any other Sikkim shooters advance from this championship?
Yes — Anu Chettri (10m air pistol) and Tshering Yangden Bhutia (10m air rifle) both qualified for the National Shooting Championship representing Sikkim.
How big was Sikkim's shooting contingent at this championship?
Eleven athletes — eight pistol shooters and three rifle shooters — competed for Sikkim, led by team president Sanjay Budhathoki, team manager Sumit Sharma, and head coach Rohit Soni.
Has Assam historically dominated this championship?
Yes — at the 9th edition held at the same Kahilipara range in September 2022, host state Assam won 55 medals (24 gold, 17 silver, 14 bronze) across an eight-team field, reflecting its larger and more established shooting infrastructure.
What events are contested at the North East Zone Shooting Championship?
The championship features 10-metre air rifle and 10-metre air pistol disciplines, across various age and skill categories including junior, senior and master divisions.
What does an MQS category mean in shooting competitions?
MQS typically denotes a minimum-qualifying-score or a specific competitive tier within pistol shooting events, distinguishing entrants competing at that standard from other categories such as NR (national ranking) or age-based master divisions contested at the same championship.
Who organises the North East Zone Shooting Championship?
It is organised under the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI), the sport's national governing body, which structures zonal championships as a competitive tier feeding into national-level shooting championships.
Sources
- Northeast News (nenews.in)
- Hub Network
- Government of Sikkim / Sikkim Rifle Association press release
- All India Radio News (Akashvani/newsonair.gov.in)
- The Sentinel Assam