China has unsurprisingly dominated the Asian Games, but Indians have impressively outperformed them in numerous events.
The Indian contingent was one medal away from equalling its best-ever medal haul at the Asian Games on Tuesday. Early on Wednesday, two more medals came the country’s way, thus taking the tally to 71 and establishing a new record. Ram Baboo and Manju Rani won bronze in the first event of the day – the 35km race walk mixed team. About an hour later, Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Pravin Ojas Deotale won gold in the compound archery mixed team event after beating Chaewon So and Jaehoon Joo of South Korea 159-158.
There are still a number of Indian medal prospects yet to either start their campaigns or reach the medal stages of their respective events. The Sports Ministry and the various advertisements have made it clear that the contingent is looking to achieve over 100 medals for the first time ever.
China is still ruling the roost
While their achievements thus far are impressive, the fact remains that India is still far from getting anywhere close to the top of the standings. China sits there at the moment with over a whopping 300 medals and their gold medal tally alone is over 160. Beating Chinese athletes in most sports at the Asian Games is a commendable effort and Indians have done that quite a few times in Hangzhou this year.
Let’s take a look at those instances:
Men’s shot put: Tajinder Pal Singh Toor (gold)
Representing China: Liu Yang (bronze)
Men’s 1500m Ajay Kumar Saroj (silver), Jinson Johnson (bronze)
Representing China: Liu Dezhu
Men’s 800m: Mohammad Afsal (silver)
Representing China: Lui Dezhu
Men’s long jump: Sreeshankar (silver)
Representing China: SHI Yuhao (Bronze)
Men’s 3000m steeplechase: Avinash Sable (gold)
Representing China: Zhaxi Ciren
Women’s 3000m Steeplechase: Parul Chaudhary (silver), Priti (bronze_
Representing China: Zhang Xinyan
Women’s heptathlon: Nandini Agasara (bronze)
Representing China: Liu Jingyi
Equestrian team dressage: Team India (gold)
China (silver)
Equestrian individual: Anush Agarwalla (bronze)
Representing China: Rao Jiayi, Chao Lan
Golf women’s individual: Aditi Ashok (silver)
Representing China: Lin Xiyu, Liu Yu
Women’s doubles table tennis: Suthirtha Mukherjee/Ayhika Mukherjee beat Chen Meng/Wiang Yidi in quarterfinal to confirm medal
Disclaimer: Except the headline and synopsis, this story has been taken from the HT News Service.