The Asian Games 2026 in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan has finally come to an end. China once again maintained its dominance in Asia by winning 341 medals with the maximum of 169 gold medals and stood first. This time also India secured fourth place. But this time the number of medals in the country’s bag was less. Indian players won a total of 85 medals in the Asian Games 2026, out of which 21 were gold medals. In the last Games, India had won 107 medals including 28 gold. So in which sports this time Indian players could not repeat their previous performance?
This time the start of medals in the Games was a bit slow for India. Especially for the gold medal there was a long wait. In the first 5 days only one gold medal was won, whereas in the last 9 days only 4 gold medals were bagged. However, the situation improved a lot by winning 17 gold in the next 5 days. In this too, 11 gold came in the last two days of Indian action. This time the biggest reason for such performance was the failure to defend the gold medal of the previous games.
Performance dropped in these games
In fact, in Hangzhou Games 2022, India had won gold medals in sports like shooting, equestrian and squash. But this time there was a lot of disappointment in these games itself. However, this time sports like wrestling, boxing, hockey and golf saved some face. If we talk about this Asian Games in comparison to the previous Asian Games, then…
- Last time India had won 22 medals including 7 gold in shooting, whereas this time only 3 gold and a total of 15 medals were won.
- In athletics, India had won 29 medals including 6 gold in the 2022 Games, but only 24 medals were won in Aichi-Nagoya, of which there was only one gold medal.
- There were a total of 5 medals in squash including 2 gold in the last Asian Games. This time also there were 5 medals but there was not even a single gold medal.
- Badminton was very disappointing, where only 1 medal was won this time. Last time there were 3 medals including 1 gold.
- Apart from these, last time there was 1 gold each in Tennis and Equestrian but this time India remained empty handed in both.
These matches saved the shame
However, India’s performance was better in some sports and gold medals were won in them, which were not much expected and these took India to the fourth position. The most special among them were,
- In comparison to Archery, where India won the gold medal in the recurve event for the first time, while also winning 2 silvers. Overall, this time too like before, 9 medals came from Archery out of which 5 were gold. In this also the previous games were on par.
- This time India got 3 gold and 3 bronze medals in boxing, which proved to be very special. Last time it was only 4 and there was no gold.
- This time a total of 6 medals including 2 gold medals were won in wrestling, whereas last time also there were 6 medals but no gold.
- This time Indian women also won the gold medal in hockey, whereas last time they did not even get a medal.
- Pranavi Urs surprised everyone by winning the gold medal in golf. She became the first Indian to win golf gold in the Asiad.
- Apart from these, unexpected medals in sports like Kurash, Sepaktakraw, Mixed Martial Arts helped him improve his position in the medal table.