It is almost 20 days since the high of Asian Games 2023 but still the fragrance of Indian success fail to subside. With Indian Athletes in Para Asian Games also crossing 100 medals, it just confirms the rapid strides Indian as a nation has made in Sports.
Being an ardent sports fan and celebrating even the small success as our own, we still remember the days when Indian contingent was just a traveller in Olympics. I vividly remember a newspaper article where it was mentioned how foreign reporters encircles our Chef-de-mission in 1992 Barcelona Games, not to ask our prospects of winning medals, but they were curious to know – How Indian Government allows such a large contingent ( 50+) with almost no hopes of winning a medal.
Next year, when we start the mission – at least a respectable curiosity will be – whether we will be able to achieve double digit of medals for the first time in history of our Olympic campaigns. And this curiosity is based on some solid performance of Indian contingent in the 19th Asian Games held at Hangzhou in China where we reached the magical figure of 100 medals for the first time in history with 28 Gold Medals ( 75% more than it’s best ever haul of 16 Gold Medals) – India won 28 Gold, 38 Silver and 41 Bronze totalling upto 107 medals and stamped their place as 4th best nation behind powerhouse China, Japan & S.Korea. This is the first time that India has secured 4th rank ( just for comparison – India was 8th last time) – before this in 1962 – India was 3rd in medal table.
Let’s see at the sports with highest significance from the perspective of next year’s Olympics :-
Shooting (7G,9S,6B – 22Medals)
The highest number of Gold Medal came from this Sport and India won 13 more medals than last time’s performance of 9 medals ( with 2 Gold). However, before anyone gets too excited and hopeful of getting multiple medals in next year Olympics – let’s understand that India owes its success in Shooting largely due to inclusion of Team events – which doesn’t feature in Olympics. So, if we minus those medals – our count comes down to 12 medals ( 2 Golds). This is almost similar to last Asian Games performance and we all know what happened in Tokyo Olympics post that – 0 medals in Shooting.
Well, one thing has changed though – the attitude and preparation of Indian Shooters. The two individual Gold ( Palak Gulia & Sift Kaur Samra) has come through some dominant shooting. Sift was 7 points ahead of next best competitor – there was no competition. I believe , our shooters will win at least 3-5 medals in Paris with at least 1 Gold ( if they maintain their form).
Athletics (6G,14S,9B – 29Medals)
One of the best performance by Indian Athletes till now in Asian Games. However, if we see it from perspective of next year’s Olympics – only Javelin throw looks to be a sure shot contention of medal. The positive thing is – we have not one but two contenders now – There was a rare sight of Neeraj Chopra behind an Indian Athlete in the competition and Kishore Jena is slowly but surely reaching the heights of medal contender at world level.
Avinash Sable in Steeplechase, Murali Sreeshankar in Long Jump & Men’s 4*400 m Relay quarter can improve to be in medal contention but it looks to be a bit far fetched as of now.
As far as Indian performance is concerned, there were too many second-place finish for Indians in this edition and a lot of credit goes to Middle east nations policy of importing African Athletes. Indian lost at least 4-5 sure shot Gold to them ( 4*400 m Women’s & Mixed Relay, 3000m Steeplechase Women’s, 5000m Men’s). Apart from Javelin’s 1-2 & Avinash Sable’s dominant run, the stand out performance was Parul Chaudhary last min dash in 5000m where Japanese runner was looking for any threat on her right and Parul surged ahead from her left – a tale for Bollywood.
Archery (5G,2S,2B – 9Medals)
What a dominant performance by Indian Team – the only event where India came on top ( except for Hockey, Kabaddi & Cricket) surging ahead of S.Korea. Indian Compound Archers have an accuracy of Arjuna – they hardly miss the 10 mark and this is not a fluke – they did the same in World Championship & World Cup a few months ago. Ojas Deotale, Jyoti Vennam, Aditi Swami & Abhishek Verma has become such a dominant player that the only contest India faced in the competition was against Chinese Taipaei in Women’s Final but that was also settled with Women hitting last 6 arrows for a perfect 10s.
However, this will not add any hope for next year Olympics as Compound Archery is not a part of Olympics. Only Recurve will be there – where India is rebuilding the team. Indian recurve archers won 1 Silver ( Men’s Team) & 1 Bronze ( Women’s Team).
Hockey (1G,1B – 2Medals)
Indian Men’s Hockey Team has never shown such a dominant display at continental level as they displayed this time – not giving any opponent any chance of creating pressure. They completed the formality of winning Gold in a clinical fashion and qualified for Paris Olympics. They can now focus for the real test and avoid the fate of World Cups. However, winning a medal at Olympics will be a big task but they are capable of doing it. The same cant be said about Women’s team who won a bronze but there is a lot of gap that needs to be filled.
…..To be continued
Kopal 