In India’s late medal surge at Asiad, six gold medals that matter - The Indian Express

For nine days, India had waited for the gold rush. On Friday, it arrived – six in all – for the country’s best day at the Asian Games. With it India moved into the top-5 in the medal tally. It started with the archers making history and finished with the women’s hockey team winning a rare gold. Each gold was won against the odds.

The emcee introduced South Korea as a 10-time Olympic champion. Kumkum Mohod, the 17-year-old prodigy, heard it and thought: “But today, the Asian Games title will be ours.” Minutes later, she, Kirti Sharma and Ankita Bhakat had brought the Korean archery dynasty crashing down.

Three years ago in Hangzhou, boxer Parveen Hooda stood on the Asian Games podium. Then her bronze was taken away after an anti-doping rule violation, leaving her to rebuild her career. On Friday, she returned to the Asian Games to win gold.

Wrestler Sujeet Kalkal had missed the last Asian Games after Bajrang Punia was handed a direct entry. He was stranded at a flooded Dubai airport, missed a crucial Olympic qualifier, and watched another door slam shut. In his maiden Asiad, he finally kicked one open, conquering wrestling’s punishing 65 kg class.

The women’s hockey team missed the Paris Games, the dressing room had fractured and two coaches had come and gone. Then, coach Sjoerd Marijne returned. China was defeated in the final on Friday, the gold hung around the necks of Indian players for only the second time in Asian Games history, and the ticket to the LA Olympics was punched.

From the wrestling mats in Noseki to the archery field in Okazaki, the boxing ring in Nishio and the hockey turf in Gifu, gold kept landing in different corners of Aichi in a matter of hours on Friday. The haul accounted for more than half of India’s gold tally at the start of the day. The gold rush propelled India into the top five on the table, with 76 medals — 16 gold, 25 silver and 35 bronze.

In Okazaki, the Indian archers had barely finished celebrating when the scale of what they had done began to sink in. Kumkum, Kirti and Ankita had beaten South Korea 5-3 to win the women’s recurve team gold — India’s first in the event since recurve entered the Asian Games in 1994.

The other statistic was even bigger. South Korea had held the throne like an heirloom since 1998, passing it from one generation to another. On a windy morning, an Indian team unburdened by that history ended the reign, leaving the Koreans with moist eyes. Lovlina shows the way

Half an hour away, the boxers were warming up for an unprecedented haul.

Lovlina Borgohain, celebrating her 29th birthday, added another layer to Japan’s hold on her career. Five years ago, Tokyo gave her an Olympic bronze. Since then, the journey has been uneven. Back in Japan, she found another major title, adding Asian Games gold to the Olympic medal she had won here.

Until Friday, only Mary Kom had won an Asian Games boxing gold for India, in 2014. Lovlina pushed open the door, and Parveen Hooda stormed through it hours later.

Parveen stepped into the ring carrying the memory of a medal she had already won. Her Hangzhou bronze was stripped after an anti-doping whereabouts violation, leaving her to wonder if she would have to rebuild her career from the beginning. “When the whereabouts issue happened, I was mentally very down. Felt like everything was over and I would have to start from scratch,” she said.

She felt sorry for herself, but only briefly. So she returned. And in one of the closest bouts of the evening, she defeated Nien-chin Chen of Chinese Taipei to upgrade the lost bronze to gold.

The Nishio ring then produced another kind of breakthrough. Ankush Panghal, one of the brightest young faces in Indian boxing, had no old wound to heal and no lost medal to reclaim. He had something else to prove: that he belonged at this level. By the end of the day, he had the gold to prove it.

Panghal wasn’t the only one announcing himself. Sujeet Kalkal was trying to rescue a final that appeared to be slipping out of his grasp. He was down 9-2 against Abdulmazid Kudiev of Tajikistan in the 65kg final, a weight class he had spent years trying to conquer.

Kalkal, whose father Dayanand was also a wrestler, had already defeated Paris Olympic champion and home favourite Kotaro Kiyooka in the semifinals. But halfway through the gold-medal bout, he looked down and out.

Then came four quick takedowns in the final two minutes. Kalkal turned a 9-2 deficit into a 10-9 victory, capping a day in which he had finally made up for lost time — and announced himself as a contender with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics on the horizon.

By evening, the women’s hockey team beat China 1-0 in Gifu, and the gold rush had come from the four corners of Aichi.

Saturday is the penultimate day, but for India it could be another enormous one.

The men’s cricket team faces Pakistan in the final; the hockey team meets Malaysia for gold; the golfers head into the final round with leads to protect; and the wrestlers have more medals to chase.

And then there are the archers. After helping India end South Korea’s long reign in the women’s recurve team event, Kumkum returns for the individual rounds. The 17-year-old heard “10-time Olympic champion” before Friday’s final and thought: today, the title will be ours. Now she gets another chance to shoot for a medal of her own.

Over the course of a 18-year-long career, Mihir Vasavda has covered 2010 FIFA World Cup; the London 2012, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Olympic Games; Asian Games in 2014 and 2022; Commonwealth Games in 2010 and 2018; Hockey World Cups in 2018 and 2023 and the 2023 ODI Cricket World Cup. ... Read More