Paired three days before the race, Satnam and Salman win India's first double sculls medal

Dubai: India's rowing campaign at the Asian Games ended with a single medal, and a first.

Satnam Singh and Salman Khan took bronze in the men's double sculls at the Nagaragawa International Regatta Course on Thursday, clocking 6:13.25. It is India's first Asian Games medal in the event.

China's Yi Xudi and Nie Yide won gold in 6:09.77, with Uzbekistan's Mekhrojbek Mamatkulov and Pavel Sorin taking silver in 6:10.49.

The Indian pair were in medal contention almost the whole way.

Satnam and Salman sat second at the 500m, 1,000m and 1,500m marks, at one stage reportedly only around half a second behind the Chinese leaders. Uzbekistan moved past them over the closing 500m, and the Indians held on for third.

They had qualified by finishing second in their heat on Wednesday in 6:15.63, so the final was an improvement of more than two seconds. Both men were visibly spent afterwards, struggling to get off the pier.

The bronze is more striking given how recently the pairing was formed.

Satnam and Salman had been part of India's men's quadruple sculls setup and were moved into the double sculls roughly three days before the event, as part of a late reshuffle of crews that the Rowing Federation of India defended as a strategy to maximise medal chances.

Satnam Singh, 26, is from Fatta Maluka in Punjab's Mansa district and represents the Indian Navy, where he holds the rank of chief petty officer. He took up rowing in 2018, inspired by London Olympian Swarn Singh Virk, who coached him. He won gold in the men's single sculls at the 2025 Senior National Championships and was part of the crew that won quadruple sculls gold at the 2025 Asian Rowing Championships in Vietnam.

This is his second Asian Games medal in a row, after bronze in the men's quadruple sculls at Hangzhou in 2023.

Salman Khan was named alongside Satnam in the men's quadruple sculls group inducted into the Target Olympic Podium Scheme development squad in June, ahead of these Games. This is his first Asian Games medal.

And on the name: it is his own. Salman Khan is a common name in India, and the rower has no connection to the Bollywood actor. The coincidence has simply given the result an extra push online.

The bronze is India's 29th rowing medal at the Asian Games, but the campaign fell well short of Hangzhou, where the team won five, two silver and three bronze, equalling their best-ever haul from Guangzhou 2010.

India sent 22 rowers to Aichi-Nagoya, 17 men and five women, across eight events.

Olympian Balraj Panwar came closest to a second medal, finishing fourth in the men's single sculls. Rohit and Ujjwal Kumar Singh also missed out in fourth, in the lightweight men's double sculls. The men's quadruple sculls crew finished fifth, and India placed sixth in the women's four.

Jaswinder Singh and Nitin Kumar won the men's pair Final B, a non-medal classification race, to finish seventh overall. Ajay Tyagi reached Final B in the lightweight men's single sculls. The men's four crew of Vipul Satish Ghurde, Saurav Kumar, Babu Lal Yadav and Yogesh Kumar went out in the heats.

The rowing bronze took India to 13 medals at these Games: one gold, five silver and seven bronze.

Shooting remains the biggest contributor with seven, followed by one each from cricket, weightlifting, badminton, MMA, soft tennis and rowing.