Sweetest century in Indian sports history. How India broke all records to win more than 100 medals at Asian Games

INTERNATIONAL DESK: October 7 2023 will forever remain a red-letter day in the history of Indian sports as it gave the country its sweetest century. India, on Saturday, which is the penultimate day of the 19th Asian Games – India’s participation, however, ends today itself – won its 100th medal at the Games for the first time ever. It was assured that would cross the elusive three-figure mark in the medal tally after the medals won in wrestling, archery (recurve), hockey, sepaktakraw and bridge and medals confirmed by the men’s cricket and both kabaddi teams but official stamp came on Saturday.

Starting the day at 95, India got their assured five medals – four in archery and one in kabaddi – to officially reach their century. Needless to say, this is also India’s best-ever medal haul at the Asian Games. They beat their previous best at the last edition in Jakarta by a huge margin. India had won 70 medals in 2018.

India have so far won 25 gold medals, 35 silver medals and 40 bronze medals.

This is also only the second time India have won more than 100 medals in any of the three major Games – The Olympics, Commonwealth Games and Asian Games. They had won 101 medals in the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. But India are set to breach that mark comfortably as three more medals are guaranteed to come as the day progresses. And if the wrestlers add to the tally then India can well go past 105 medals by the end of the day.

That’s a mammoth jump from two decades ago when India returned with 36 medals from the 2002 Busan Asian Games. In 2006 in Doha, India’s tally was 53 and four years later in Guangzhou it was 65. There was a slight drop at the 2014 Incheon Asiad, which fetched just 57 medals before India were back on track at Jakarta and Palembang with 70 medals five years ago, their best-ever tally then.

The day started with Aditi Swami Gopichand getting bronze in women’s compound archery by beating Indonesia’s Ratih Zilizati Fadhly. Jyothi Surekha Vennam then got India another gold in the same event. She beat her formidable South Korean opponent So Chaewon 149-145.

A few minutes later, it was an all-Indian final in the men’s compound archery with the experienced Abhishek Verma going up against young Ojas Pravin Deotale. In a battle between the master and apprentice, it was the 21-year-old reigning world champion Deotale who emerged winner by two points. But what this meant was India’s medal tally reached 99 with another gold and silver in archery.

The 100th mark was reached after the women’s kabaddi team beat Chinese Taipei in a nail-biting final in the last time to clinch gold.

Athletics (best-ever haul of 29 medals) and shooting (22) have been the biggest contributors to India’s sweetest century. This dominating performance augurs well with the Paris Olympics set to take place next year. (HT)