Asian Games 2023: India's brightest medal prospects

Indian athletes have only begun to make inroads at a global level in the last decade, but if there’s one major multi-sport event they have dominated right from the start, it’s the Asian Games. The Asian Games were, to a large extent, an Indian initiative. Led by the then Maharaja of Patiala, Yadavindra Singh (the last to sit on the Patiala throne), India conceptualized and hosted the inaugural Asian Games in New Delhi in 1951. Eleven nations, including India, participated, and the competition saw 478 athletes playing (by comparison, just the Indian contingent for the 2023 Asian Games numbers 634 athletes). India won 15 gold medals in a total haul of 51 medals, finishing behind Japan. It remains the best finish by India at the Asian Games, which speaks volumes about the trajectory of sporting development in the country.

Since then, India has managed to remain among the top 5 countries in the Asian Games medal tally, winning a combined total of 672 medals (China and Japan, the top two nations in Asian Games history, have tallies of 3,000-plus medals each), including 155 gold medals. The last edition of the Asian Games, held in 2018 in Jakarta, saw India winning its biggest haul of medals yet—70, including 16 golds—to finish eighth on the medal tally.

There was high drama and wonderful stories from an Indian perspective—this was where we got our first good look at Neeraj Chopra, then just 20 years old, winning the javelin gold with a sensational 88.06m throw; it was the stage for redemption for wrestler Vinesh Phogat, whose Olympic dreams were cut short two years prior in Rio with a knee ligament torn in competition, coming back to win gold after a year spent in rehab; where a little-known athlete called Swapna Barman, with a back injury, a meniscus tear, and a face taped and bandaged because of a near-debilitating toothache, won a heptathlon gold; and a historic first 4x400 mixed team relay gold.

What are India’s chances at the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China (September 23 to October 8), where India is fielding its largest contingent—634 athletes across 38 sporting disciplines—ever? Predictions, by their very nature, should be taken with a pinch of salt, but there is every indication that India will cross its best-ever haul from 2018 in this edition. Here is a brief sport-by-sport breakdown:

Archery

India made history in August at the World Archery Championships by winning three gold medals—the women’s compound team sparked the spree, winning the country’s first gold at the Worlds with an ice-cold takedown of Mexico, before 17-year-old Aditi Swami became the youngest world champion in the women’s individual compound category, followed by Ojas Deotale becoming the male compound world champion with a perfect score. All of these archers will be in action at the Asian Games.

Athletics

The first name in Indian athletics is, of course, Neeraj Chopra. After a sensational season in which he became the world champion, Chopra is expected to win in every competition he enters, and the Asian Games is no exception. Watch out for yet another chapter of a great Indo-Pak rivalry—a unique one where the rivals are also close friends who bask in each other’s achievements—as Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem, who won the silver at the world championships, takes the field against Chopra. There may even be two Indians on the podium as Kishore Jena, who also made the world championship final, is in the form of his life.

Another discipline where there is a good likelihood of seeing two Indians on the podium is the long jump—Jeswin Aldrin set the national record this year with a 7.42m jump, just 0.01 metres more than his friend Murali Sreeshankar, who held the previous record. If they perform at their best, both jumpers are clear ahead of the field.

The giant Tajinderpal Singh Toor will return to defend his 2018 shot put title and has little competition at the Asian level.

Jinson Johnson too returns to defend his 1500m title, after a two-year period recovering from an injury, the Kerala runner is getting back to his best, recording a season’s-best time this month.

Avinash Sable, the man who broke the 3000m steeplechase record at will and broke a 25-year-old Kenyan podium hegemony at the 2023 Commonwealth Games by winning silver, will try to erase the memories of a poor world championship show by winning an Asian gold. He will also be attempting the difficult task of running two distance races—he will be competing in the 5000m too.

Parul Chaudhary, the 3000m steeplechase, 3000m, and 5000m national record holder has also had a brilliant year where she became the steeplechase Asian champion, the first Indian woman to qualify for the finals of the world championship in steeplechase, where she set the national record and finished with a time that has given her qualification for the Paris Olympics. She too will run both the steeplechase and the 5000m races at Hangzhou.

The men’s 4x400 relay team will elicit massive interest and attention too, after some breathtaking performances at the World Athletics Championship in August, where they ran toe-to-toe with the US relay team in the heats and finished fifth in the finals. Veterans Muhammed Anas Yahiya, Amoj Jacob, and Muhammed Ajmal now have rookie sensation Rajesh Ramesh to run the final leg with his electric speed. They too have left the Asian competition behind, showing that they belong in the elite global club—rubbing shoulders with the USA, Great Britain, France, and Jamaica.

Jyothi Yarraji has set and reset the national record in 100m Hurdles five times in the space of a few months, dropping it below 13 seconds for the first time in India, which firmly makes her a gold favourite in Hangzhou. If she pulls it off, it will be a historic first.

Shaili Singh has had a great year too, winning a silver at the 2023 Asian Athletics Championships in long jump. The silver medallist at the 2021 U-20 World Athletics Championship is the first Indian woman jumper since Anju Bobby George in the early-2000s to touch global elite standards in the event. Coached by Anju Bobby, the prodigy from Uttar Pradesh joins a new wave of Indian long jumpers making it big—Jeswin Aldrin, who set the national record this year with a 8.42m jump, better than the distance that got the gold at the Tokyo Olympics, and Murali Sreeshankar who touched 8.41m this year, are hoping for an unprecedented Indian 1-2 at the Asian Games.

Keep an eye out for Swapna Barman too—she has had a difficult few years since the 2018 gold, finding herself excluded from the list of India’s top athletes for government funding. Struggling both financially and with injuries, Barman has still managed to remain India’s best heptathlete. The Asian Games will be her swansong, and who can dismiss an athlete whose grit was the most inspirational story for India in the last edition of the Games?

Badminton

Indian badminton is notoriously unpredictable—top of the world one day, lost in the wilderness the next. PV Sindhu, the best India has ever produced is in the middle of the worst patch of her career. Srikanth Kidambi has been on a downward spiral ever since his 2021 World Championship silver. On the other hand, HS Prannoy, at the fag end of his career, is in the form of his life. Lakshya Sen, the rising star, had the best year of his career in 2022, when he won the Commonwealth title, finished runners-up at All England, and helped India win the team title at the Thomas Cup. Can he find that form again this year?

The best hope for India in badminton comes in the form of the energetic, indefatigable men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, who have consistently proven that they are among the best in the world, winning the Thomas Cup, the Commonwealth title and the 2023 Asian Championship.

Lovlina Borgohain (Illustration by Suneesh K.)

Boxing

After the most successful medal haul ever at a World Championship, which the Indian women managed this year in New Delhi with four gold medals, India’s women boxers are going to Hangzhou with the lofty ambition of creating history again. Nikhat Zareen has now won two consecutive world titles and the 2022 Commonwealth title, which makes her an absolute favourite in Light Flyweight.

Olympic bronze medallist and 2022 world champion Lovlina Borgohain’s middleweight category features stiff Chinese competition, and since home-advantage remains, unfortunately, a reality in amateur boxing, Borgohain will have her task cut out. But she will expect to be in the final.

The two big names will be joined by a host of new, exciting talent like Parveen Hooda and Jaismine Lamboria.

The men’s boxing team is an enigma—after much hype leading up to the 2021 Olympics, the team crashed and burned in Tokyo. They have been in rebuild-mode ever since, and this will be their first major challenge.

Chess

The Indian charge will be led by the prodigy Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa who created waves by becoming the youngest ever finalist at the world chess championship (and only the second Indian after his idol Viswanathan Anand), where he was beaten by Magnus Carlsen.

Gukesh D, who was also beaten by Carlsen at the world championship this year, is another prodigy making his mark, and he recently overtook Anand as India’s No. 1 ranked chess player, the first time in 37 years that Anand has been dethroned.

Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa (left). (Illustration by Suneesh K.)

Cricket

Cricket’s inclusion in the Asian Games is part of the sport’s efforts to be included in the Olympic programme. The end of the Asian Games will coincide with the beginning of the ICC ODI World Cup in India, so the featured teams at the Asiad will be the second-string players in the men’s game. But “second-string” is doing injustice to India’s incredible wealth of cricketing talent—with IPL stars like Ruturaj Gaikwad, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Tilak Verma, Rinku Singh, Washington Sunder and Arshdeep Singh in the team, it will require a massive upset to prevent India from winning the inaugural cricket gold at the Asiad.

The women’s team, led by Harmanpreet Kaur, is at full strength, and like the men, are expected to saunter to gold.

Fencing

Bhavani Devi has made fencing a recognizable sport in India with her unlikely exploits at the world level, including at the Tokyo Olympics, where she became the first Indian fencer to represent India at the Games.

She trains in France with some of the world’s elite, under one of the most reputed coaches in the world, and the Asian Games will be yet another big stage for her to test herself.

Gymnastics

With the national gymnastics federation in a mess, the sport failed to capitalize on Dipa Karmakar’s pioneering path—Karmakar was the first Indian gymnast to qualify for the Olympics back in 2016. As a result, India has only one gymnast headed to the Asian Games. West Bengal’s Pranati Nayak may be on her own, but she is also in her own league in India—she became the second Indian after Karmakar to represent India at the Olympics (Tokyo) and has won the bronze twice at the Asian Championships, including one last year. In September, Nayak won a prestigious bronze at the World Challenge Cup in Hungary, showing that she is a strong medal contender at Hangzhou.

Hockey

Indian hockey is back with a bang, breaking a nearly three-decade-long medal jinx at the Olympics with a bronze in Tokyo for the men, and a fiery, heart-stopping run by the women’s team which saw them finish fourth.

The last time the men won the Asian Games title was in 2014, and the women in 1982. But both teams are in great form going into Hangzhou and have realistic chances to go all the way.

Shooting

As always, expect a clutch of medals from the shooting contingent. India’s shooters had a torrid time at the Tokyo Olympics, where many of them went as the top-ranked in the world but no one came close to a medal. Remember, though, that the team in Tokyo was made up largely of teenagers, a new crop of fabulous shooters, but with very little big-game experience. The likes of Divyansh Panwar, Mehuli Ghosh, Manu Bhaker and Zoravar Sandhu has since had two years to add experience to their undoubted skills.

Tokyo Olympics silver medalist Mirabai Chanu. (Illustration by Suneesh K.)

Weightlifting

Olympic silver medallist Mirabai Chanu and Bindyarani Devi will be India’s only lifters in action at the Asian Games. Even at the Olympic level, Chanu’s main competition is Chinese, so the Asian Games will be, in effect, a looking glass to the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Wrestling

Indian wrestling has been in turmoil since January, when some of the country’s finest wrestlers accused the former federation chief and BJP leader Brij Bhushan Singh Sharan of sexual harassment; there has been no federation to look after the wrestlers for the last six months. Yet, India’s wrestling tradition continues to be in fine hands, with young talent like Antim Panghal, Pooja Gehlot, Sonam Malik, Aman Sehrawat and Deepak Punia out to prove themselves at the biggest stage.