ASIAN GAMES 2018-ASSESSMENT OF PERFORMANCE

The Asian Games are concluding today. These are the Asian games to be remembered for the Indians. It is not just a case of winning more medals and equalling the highest number of gold’s ever won. It is the performance of our athletics team that gives us great satisfaction. At either the Asian Games or the Olympics, the maximum number of medals is allocated for athletics. If our team is good in athletics that would improve the chances of India winning medals at the Olympics.  

Of course, in wrestling India had been traditionally strong and our shooters too shot into the word level after the current sports minister Rajayavardhan Singh Rathore won a silver at the 2004 Olympics.

In athletics India had been traditionally weak and even the legendary PT Usha who was unchallenged at the Asian level was not good enough for the Olympics. At the Los Angeles games she made it to the final only because the entire soviet bloc countries who have the best athletes in 400 mtrs hurdles, the event of PT Usha boycotted the games. Of course, this is no discredit to her as she dominated the Asian athletics completely and got the top honors.

 As far as athletics are concerned except for Milkha Singh and Gurbacahan Singh Randhawa way back in 1960 and 1964 respectively we had no athletes who can be called Olympic medal-winning class. Unfortunately, both of them could only finish 4^th in their event at the Olympics and could not get India any medals.

Our athletics team has done exceptionally well at the games. But all of these performances are not World class except for those of Neeraj Chopra and Hima Das.

 In Javelin at the 2016 Olympics a throw of 90.30 got a Gold. Neeraj Chopra threw 88.06 which is pretty close. He is young and would certainly improve by the time of 2020 Olympics and he is certainly a gold medal prospect for India.     

In the 400 meters Hima Das did as well as Neeraj Chopra did in javelin. Despite getting a silver she did 50.59 seconds which is very close to the very best in the world. In the last Olympics Shaune Miller of Bahamas won a gold in this event with a timing of  49.44, silver to Allyson Felix of the US at 49.51and bronze to Jamaica at 49.85. See how close these times are to the record of Hima Das.  Despite winning a silver here she too is a gold medal prospect for the 2020 Olympics.

Both these athletes are great finds for India and their performance in the next Olympics turn would spur a generation of athletes in the same way the performance of Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore did in shooting. 

In boxing Amit Panghal has shown absolute class by defeating the Olympic champion and the world championship silver medallist in the final. He is another gold medal prospect for India at the next Olympics.

Looking to these performances, and our shooters and wrestlers we have every right to be optimistic about the medal tally at the next Olympics. Gone are those days when we drew a blank in the years 1976, 1984, 1988 & 1992.