INDIAN athletes are striking it rich in the ongoing Asian Games in Hangzhou, China. With the current edition of the Games almost to be over, it has been India’s best-ever show with 81 medals, going past 70-medal haul in the last edition in Jakarta.
The bright spot in India’s performance is that it has been winning medals in disciplines where it never won before. Medals in squash, dressage (equestrian), speed skating, rowing and badminton are something unprecedented for Indian sport.
The gold medal won by the men’s squash team was one of the biggest surprises. The trio of Mahesh Mangaokar, Sourav Ghoshal, Abhay Singh punched above their weight to beat Pakistan 2-1 in the final. After Ghoshal had beaten Pakistan’s Asim Khan to restore parity at 1-1, rookie Abhay Singh came up with his best performance to seal the tie for India.
Dressage event gold
Another stunning show came in the dressage event of equestrian when the quartet of Anush Agarwalla, Hriday Chheda, Divyakirti Singh and Sudipti Hajela won the gold to end a 41-yearold wait. Anush was the star of the show as he went on to win a bronze medal also in the individual event. The speed skating bronze medal exploits of both the men and women’s team in the 3000m was something out of the blue, when one takes into consideration that the inaugural speed skating Nationals Championships was held only five years ago. It was a great effort by Indian teams to finish with bronze.
Rowing was another ‘surprise’ discipline in which Indians struck multiple medals. Neeraj, Nitish, Charanjeet, Ashish, Bheem Singh, Punit and Jaswinder came up with a late surge to finish just behind world champions China in the Men’s Coxed Eight final event. There were more glad tidings when Lekh Ram and Babu Lal Yadav won the bronze in the men’s pair final event.
Rare gold in track
Avinash Sable brought a rare gold medal in the track when he led from the start to finish in the 3000m steeplechase—easily one of the toughest races. The 24-year-old Army man ran a tactically brilliant race as he set the pace and eased towards the end. Incidentally this is India’s first ever gold medal in the 3000m steeplechase in a major international competition, In badminton, India almost did the unthinkable when they led world champions China 2-0 in the best of five gold medal match in the men’s championships. Lakshya Sen outplayed former world champion Shi Yu QI and the crack combine of Chirag Shetty and Ranky Reddy won their doubles match.
