India Ends Asian Games Campaign with Highest-ever Medal Haul after Scoring Sweetest Century

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Oct 7: Adding six more gold to its tally, India ended its historic campaign at the Asian Games in Hangzhou on Saturday finishing with their highest-ever haul of 107 medals, including 28 gold medals, 38 silver medals, and 41 bronze medals and finishing fourth in the Asian Games overall standings.

The Indian contingent truly lived up to the ‘Is Baar Sau Paar’ target as starting with 95 medal haul on Friday the nation officially touched the 100-medal mark and then went on to add seven more during the course of the day. More medals in compound archery (3), kabaddi (2), badminton (1), and men’s cricket (1) were already assured. On Saturday, which was the final day for Indian athletes’ events in Hangzhou, India added four more medals in archery while the women’s kabaddi team’s win over Chinese Taipei in the final officially took India to the 100-medal mark.

This is the women’s kabaddi team’s third title triumph in the continental showpiece, doing one better than its runner-up finish in the last edition of the Games in Indonesia and fulfilling the country’s expectations of touching the historic three-figure mark for the first time.

It was a very difficult outing for the Indian women as Chinese Taipei pushed them to the limit in the final, missing out on the top prize by just a solitary point. The Indian team showed nerves of steel in the last two raids to seal the contest in its favour.

India had won 70 medals in the last edition in Indonesia where the country’s athletes won 16 gold, 23 silver and 31 bronze medals to record their best-ever performance. India achieved the best-ever haul on the back of a splendid show by the shooters (22) and track and field athletes (29 medals), who contributed 51 medals.

The Indian contingent won many surprise medals, the biggest being a women’s table tennis team bronze by Sutirtha Mukherjee and Ayhika Mukherjee, who humbled the mighty China in the semi-finals. Parul Chaudhary’s sensational dash in the last 30 metres of the women’s 5000m event will also be remembered for a long time as the Meerut runner snatched a gold by edging Japan’s Ririka Hironaka in a close finish.

Javelin thrower Kishore Kumar Jena’s astonishing 86.77m throw that gave him lead over superstar Neeraj Chopra for a brief period in the men’s javelin event was another unforgettable moment. Later Chopra won the gold, while Jena finished behind him to settle for a silver medal.

Canoers Arjun Singh and Sunil Singh Salam’s historic bronze in the men’s double 1000m along with Ram Baboo and Manju Rani’s third place finish in the mixed 35km race walk were perfect examples that if athletes refuse to bow down to the hardships life throws, excelling in sports is possible. It was assured that India would cross the elusive three-figure mark in the medal tally after the medals won in wrestling, archery (recurve), hockey, sepaktakraw and bridge and medals confirmed by the men’s cricket and both kabaddi teams but official stamp came on Saturday.

India were crowned Asian Games men’s cricket champions on their first attempt and without needing to bat on Saturday in an anti-climaxing finish, consigning Afghanistan to a third consecutive silver. India were declared winners of the final under an Asian Games-specific rule where the higher-ranked team takes the honours if the match cannot be finished, in this case due to rain.

Afghanistan made 112-5 under the floodlights in Hangzhou before the wet weather arrived after 18.2 overs. With conditions not improving, the final was abandoned. Despite the damp ending it completed a golden double for India after they beat Sri Lanka by 19 runs to be crowned women’s champions last week.

Twenty20 cricket has been played at the Asian Games twice before, at Guangzhou 2010 and Incheon 2014, with Bangladesh and then Sri Lanka crowned men’s winners. Afghanistan were runners-up both times, but India did not take part. Because they were among the higher-ranked teams, they both entered the tournament at the quarterfinal stage in Hangzhou. While India cruised through their knockout games, against Nepal and Bangladesh, the Afghans had to scrap hard to beat holders Sri Lanka and then Pakistan.

This is also only the second time India have won more than 100 medals in any of the three major Games – The Olympics, Commonwealth Games and Asian Games. They had won 101 medals in the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.

In the Asian Games, it was a mammoth jump from two decades ago when India returned with 36 medals from the 2002 Busan Asian Games. In 2006 in Doha, India’s tally was 53 and four years later in Guangzhou it was 65. There was a slight drop at the 2014 Incheon Asiad, which fetched just 57 medals before India were back on track at Jakarta and Palembang with 70 medals five years ago, their best-ever tally then.

For India, Saturday with Aditi Swami Gopichand getting bronze in women’s compound archery by beating Indonesia’s Ratih Zilizati Fadhly. Jyothi Surekha Vennam then got India another gold in the same event. She beat her formidable South Korean opponent So Chaewon 149-145.

A few minutes later, it was an all-Indian final in the men’s compound archery with the experienced Abhishek Verma going up against young Ojas Pravin Deotale. In a battle between the master and apprentice, it was the 21-year-old reigning world champion Deotale who emerged winner by two points. But what this meant was India’s medal tally reached 99 with another gold and silver in archery.

The 100th mark was reached after the women’s kabaddi team beat Chinese Taipei in a nail-biting final in the last time to clinch gold.

Athletics (best-ever haul of 29 medals) and shooting (22) have been the biggest contributors to India’s sweetest century. This dominating performance augurs well with the Paris Olympics set to take place next year.

Following is the list of India’s medal winners:

GOLD

Women’s Kabaddi Team

Ojas Pravin Deotale – Men’s Compound Archery (Individual)

Jyothi Surekha Vennam – Women’s Compound Archery (Individual)

Men’s Hockey Team

Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Ojas Praveen Deotale – Compound Archery (Mixed Team)

Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Aditi Gopichand Swami, Parneet Kaur – Compound Archery (Women’s Team)

Ojas Pravin Deotale, Prathamesh Jawkar, Abhishek Verma Compound Archery (Men’s Team)

Muhammad Anas Yahiya, Amoj Jacob, Muhammad Ajmal and Rajesh Ramesh – Men’s 4x400m Relay – Athletics

Neeraj Chopra – Men’s Javelin Throw

Avinash Sable – Men’s 3000m Steeplechase

Tajinderpal Singh Toor – Men’s Shotput

Parul Chaudhary – Women’s 5000m

Annu Rani – Women’s Javelin Throw

India Women’s Cricket Team

Equestrian – Dressage Team

Sarabjot Singh, Arjun Singh Cheema, Shiva Narwal – Men’s 10m Air Pistol (Team)

Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Rudrankksh Patil, Divyansh Singh Panwar – Men’s 10m Air Rifle (Team)

Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar, Swapnil Kusale and Akhil Sheoran – Men’s 50m Rifle 3 Position (Team)

Palak Gulia – Women’s 10m Air Pistol

Manu Bhaker, Esha Singh, Rhythm Sangwan – Women’s 25m Air Pistol (Team)

Sift Kaur Samra – Women’s 50m Rifle 3 Position

Kynan Chenai, Zoravar Sandhu, Prithviraj Tondaiman – Men’s Trap (Team)

Saurav Ghosal, Abhay Singh, Mahesh Mangaonkar, Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu – Men’s Squash (Team)

Dipika Pallikal and Harinder Pal Sandhu – Squash (Mixed Doubles)

Rohan Bopanna, Rutuja Bhosale – Tennis (Mixed Doubles)

SILVER

Atanu Das, Dhiraj Bommadevara, Tushar Shelke – Men’s Archery Recurve (Team)

Abhishek Verma – Men’s Compound Archery (Individual)

Kishore Kumar Jena – Men’s Javelin Throw

Jyothi Yarraji – Women’s 100m Hurdles

Sreeshankar Murali – Men’s Long Jump

Avinash Sable – Men’s 5000m

Tejaswin Shankar – Men’s Decathlon

Vithya Ramraj, Aishwarya Mishra, Prachi, Subha Venkatesh – Women’s 4x400m Relay

Muhammed Ajmal, Rajesh Ramesh, Vithya Ramraj, Subha Venkatesan – Mixed 4x400m Relay

Ancy Sojan – Women’s Long Jump

Karthik Kumar – Men’s 10000m

Harmilan Bains – Women’s 15000m

Parul Chaudhary – Women’s 3000m Steeplechase

Harmilan Bains – Women’s 800m

Ajay Kumar Saroj – Men’s 1500m

Muhammad Afsal – Men’s 800m

India Men’s Badminton Team

Aditi Ashok – Women’s Golf (Individual)

Lovlina Borgohain – Boxing Women’s 75kg

Arjun Lal Jat and Arvind Singh – Rowing Men’s Lightweight Double Sculls

India Men’s Eight Team Rowing

Neha Thakur – Sailing Girl’s Dinghy

Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar – Men’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions (Individual)

Esha Singh, Palak Gulia and Divya TS – Women’s 10m Air Pistol (Team)

Ramita Jindal, Mehuli Ghosh, Ashi Chouksey – Women’s 10m Air Rifle (Team)

Esha Singh – Women’s 10m Air Pistol (Individual)

Esha Singh – Women’s 25m Pistol (Individual)

Sift Kaur Samra, Ashi Chouksey, Manini Kaushik – Women’s 50m Rifle 3 Positions (Team)

Anant Jeet Singh Naruka – Men’s Skeet (Individual)

Divya TS and Sarabjot Singh – 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team

Rajeshwari Kumari, Manisha Keer, Preeti Rajak – Women’s Trap Team

Saurav Ghosal – Squash Men’s Singles

Ramkumar Ramanathan, Saketh Myneni – Tennis Men’s Doubles

Naorem Roshibina Devi – Wushu Women’s Sanda 60kg

Indian Men’s Bridge Team

BRONZE

Ankita Bhakat, Bhajan Kaur, Simranjeet Kaur – Women’s Recurve Archery Team

Aditi Gopichand Swami – Women’s Compound Archery (Individual)

Praveen Chithravel – Men’s Triple Jump

Sutirtha Mukherjee and Ayhika Mukherjee – Table Tennis Women’s Doubles

Priti Lamba – Women’s 3000m Steeplechase

Gulveer Singh – Men’s 10000m

Kiran Baliyan – Women’s Shot Put

Jinson Johnson – Men’s 1500m

Seema Punia – Women’s Discus Throw

Nandini Agasara – Women’s Heptathlon

Vithya Ramraj – Women’s 400m Hurdles

Ram Baboo and Manju Rani – 35km Race Walk (Mixed Team)

HS Prannoy – Badminton Men’s Singles

Nikhat Zareen – Boxing Women’s 50kg

Preeti Pawar – Boxing Women’s 54kg

Narender Berwal – Boxing Men’s 92+kg

Parveen Hooda – Boxing Women’s 57kg

Arjun Singh and Salam Sunil Singh – Men’s 1000m Canoe Sprint

Anush Agarwalla – Equestrian Dressage (Individual)

Aarathy Kasthuri Raj, Heeral Sadhu, Sanjana Bathula, Karthika Jagadeeswaran – Women’s 3000m Speed Skating Relay

Aryanpal Ghuman, Anandkumar Velkumar, Siddhant Kamble, VikramIngale – Men’s 3000m Speed Skating Relay

Babu Lal Yadav and Lekh Ram – Rowing Men’s Pair

Ashish, Bheem Singh, Jaswinder Singh, Punit Kumar – Rowing Men’s Four

Satnam Singh, Parminder Singh, Jakar Khan, Sukhmeet Singh – Rowing Men’s Quadruple Sculls

Eabad Ali – Sailing Men’s Windsurfing RS:X class

Vishnu Saravanan – Sailing Men’s Dinghy ILCA7

India Women’s Sepaktakraw Team

Ramita Jindal – Women’s 10m Air Rifle (Individual)

Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar – Men’s 10m Air Rifle (Individual)

Vijayveer Sidhu, Adarsh Singh, Anish Bhanwala – Men’s 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Team

Ashi Chouksey – Women’s 50m Rifle 3 Position (Individual)

Anant Jeet Singh Naruka, Angad Vir Singh Bajwa, Gurjoat Singh Khangura – Men’s Skeet Team

Kynan Chenai – Men’s Trap

Joshna Chinappa, Dipika Pallikal Karthik, Tanvi Khanna, Anahat Singh – Women’s Squash (Team)

Abhay Singh and Anahat Singh – Squash Mixed Doubles

Antim Panghal – Wrestling Women’s 53kg

Sunil Kumar – Wrestling – Men’s Greco-Roman 87kg

Sonam Malik – Wrestling Women’s 62kg

Kiran Bishnoi – Wrestling Women’s 76kg

Aman Sehrawat – Wrestling Men’s 57kg.