Of Indian saga at Hangzhou Asian Games
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After the flag was lowered for 19th Asian Games in China's Hangzhou, Indian team returned home with great pride. They bagged 107 medals including 28 gold, 38 silver and 41 bronze notching India to fourth place for the first time on the medal list. Though the country was placed second in the inaugural 1951 Asian Games and third in 1962, the number of countries which participated in those years were fewer: 11 and 17 respectively. Now there are 45 nations. The measure of India’s meteoric rise in sports can be understood comparing the 4 th position it achieved in five years to the 8th position at Jakarta in 2018. There is no doubt that this achievement will help our sports people elbow through all kinds of entrenched hindrances in the country’s sports sector.
It is a historic moment for a team that left home with the dream of 100 medals and is back home with 107 medals. More important, most of the medalists are young. Their triumph without debutantes’ trembling at the big international venue such as Asian Games offers room for greater hopes. If they pull off the same performance in next year’s Paris Olympics, India can ensure medals in several items. That will help the nation climb to the dreamed double digit on medal list. India’s reigning Olympic champion in Men's Javelin at Tokyo, Neeraj Chopra, made it to gold at Hangzhou too. He gives a strong hint of hopes in Paris. Winning gold in men’s hockey beating Japan by a huge margin is another indication. A repeat performance in Men’s-Women's Kabaddi and victory in shooting and archery in Paris Olympics can ensure more medals than the nation hitherto has won (35). Hence India’s triumph at Asian Games needs to be celebrated in every sense. It is to be doubted if Olympic Association ever expected such a great success. As usual they were planning to send a handful of athletes to China like a ritual. The association decided not to participate in football, basketball, karate and handball citing technical issues. It was reconsidered after people including Igor Štimac, the national football team coach, raised protest. In a sense, the incident illustrated our sports authorities’ attitude. The sports people in the nation have to fight against this flawed approach in the first place. Of the dozen medalists at Hangzhou, we can proudly say there are those from Kerala too. PR Sreejesh was the goalkeeper to the team that won the gold together with an Olympic ticket. The three of the four in the Gold winning team for Men's Relay are Keralites: Muhammad Ajmal, Muhammad Anas, and Amoj Jacob. Ajmal won silver in the mixed relay. With double achievement in Squash including gold, Dipika Pallikal shined at the games; Men’s shuttler HS Prannoy won two medals; Minnu Mani (Cricket), M. Sreesankar (Long Jump), Ansi Sojan (Low Jump), Muhammad Afzal (Athletics), M. R. Arjun (Badminton) and Jinson Johnson (athletics) are from Kerala. This is not a sudden gain but a result of hard work of each sports person and their coaches and also their families’ support and prayers. Let’s wish for sporting India winning more accolades.
Host China’s dominance in all areas of sports was evident this time. Indeed, Chinese dominance has been happening over the last many years in Asian Games. Since 2008, China has been dominating Olympics as well. It was seen in display all the more strongly at Hangzhou. Where India was striving to achieveits 100 medal-dream, China won more than 200 medals. In 2018, it was 132. More than winning the medals they can take pride in immaculately conducting the games. The opening and closing ceremonies literally surprised the world. Except for a few lapses on the part of officials in athletics, they conducted the games meticulously. Hangzhou could demonstrate international standard in organizing the games, thanks to their experience from having hosted Olympics once. Asian Games should be an example to India in that respect as well. It is reported that India will bid for 2036 Olympics host. That is something commendable. We have the experience of hosting the relatively large Commonwealth Games. The country has all necessary infrastructure in place. Hosting Olympics will certainly enliven the nation’s sports sector.
