Asian Games: India breaks new ground with century of medals and highest-ever rank on tally | Asian-games News

Hangzhou: A Games replete with horic firsts, a strong return to podium in sports it had earlier missed, and memorable comebacks will end with another landmark moment – for the first time, India will breach the 100-medal mark at the Asiad.The unprecedented medal haul will also ensure India’s best-ever rank at the Asian Games in over 60 years, with fourth place behind China, Japan and South Korea now secured.
India began the penultimate day of competition here with 86 medals. Through the day, the team added nine more to the tally, with medals coming in hockey (gold), archery (silver and bronze), bridge (silver), badminton (bronze), sepaktakraw (bronze) and wrestling (3 bronze), taking the total to 95.
Click here to read all of Mihir Vasavda’s dispatches from Hangzhou
On Saturday, the final day of events before Sunday’s closing ceremony, the Indian team has confirmed medals in archery (three), kabaddi (two), badminton and men’s cricket. More are possible in women’s hockey and chess.
“We came here with the target of 100 medals but didn’t imagine our dream would come true,” said India’s chef de mission, Bhupinder Singh Bajwa. “Now, we will achieve it easily tomorrow. I congratulate all the players, along with the coaches and support staff, for reaching the target we set out to achieve.”
Prime Miner Narendra Modi is learnt to have invited each member of India’s 650-plus contingent for a felicitation ceremony in New Delhi on October 10.
India’s previous best performance at the continental showpiece event was in Jakarta five years ago, with 70 medals. Its previous highest overall finish was at the 1962 Asian Games, also in Jakarta, when India finished third. In every edition since then, the Indian team has ranked fifth or lower.
Here are some figures from a record-breaking campaign:
* Of the 95 medals so far in 20 sports, 44 came from men, 41 from women, and 9 in mixed events.
* The country has won 22 gold medals, again the most ever. Shooting has the most gold medalls – 7.
* 51 medals came just from two sports – athletics (29) and shooting (22).
* 30 athletes have so far won more than one medal, with rifleman Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar and pol shooter Esha Singh winning the most medals a single athlete – 4 each.
* On October 1, the team won the most medals in a single day – 15 – and there hasn’t been a single day without any medal.
Increased funding, focused training plans and routine exposure trips outside India, where the athletes practise and compete, are seen as some of the key reasons for the medal high, which follows the best-ever haul at the Tokyo Olympics two years ago.
This march to a century has also been made possible a record number of women podium finishers, and medals in sports the country has little or no hory in, breaking decades-old records in some. The last-minute change of mind the Board of Control for Cricket in India – which had earlier decided against sending the women’s and men’s teams for the Asiad – also ensured two medals.
The medal count was also aided the inclusion of team events in shooting, which wasn’t the case five years ago in Jakarta. Thirteen of the 22 shooting medals came in team events. But even that is an improvement from the last time they were included – back in 2014 when India won just four medals in team events.
Other significant firsts pushed the tally to the 100 mark. For instance, Parul Chaudhary’s gold medal in the 5,000 metres race was India’s first in the event at the Asiad since it was introduced at the 1998 Games.Most Read
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Similarly, in equestrian, the dressage team produced a stunning performance to win the gold medal, while in the individual event, Anush Agarwalla won the bronze, another first. The 4x400m men’s relay team recorded a first top-of-the-podium performance since the 1962 Asiad.
On Saturday, India could complete a clean sweep of gold medals in compound archery, a discipline that was introduced in India just 19 years ago. While compound isn’t an Olympic event, Bajwa said the athletes must soon shift their focus towards the Paris Games, which are less than nine months away.
“We must now look at the Paris Olympics as our next target. I urge athletes to return to their training after a brief rest and begin their Paris preparations as soon as possible. Given the haul here, I am confident that we shall double the Tokyo mark in Paris,” Bajwa said.