At Asiad, all that glitters isn’t gold

Mirabhai Chanu is an Olympic medallist, and one of the country's finest athletes. But she has not stood on the Asiad podium in two shots.

2 min readSep 19, 2026 07:00 AM IST First published on: Sep 19, 2026 at 07:00 AM IST

One in every five athletes, among 500 Indians who have landed in Aichi-Nagoya for the Asian Games, could return with a medal. The count could exceed that of the Hangzhou Games. But all that glitters is not likely to be gold. Medals, no doubt, are important. But more significant would be the field in which they are won.

India’s ambition to be a sporting superpower rests not only on the number of medals or their placement on the table, but also on the events in which its athletes break fresh ground. It would be mildly exciting if the cricket teams defend their gold medal. Such is their monopoly on the sport that it could not count as upward mobility. As would be a clutch of other streams the country has traditionally dominated — like shooting or kabaddi.

A better indicator of India’s sustained rise would be winning medals in sports where the competition is intense and where the country’s athletes have historically struggled. Weightlifting is a good example. Mirabhai Chanu is an Olympic medallist, and one of the country’s finest athletes. But she has not stood on the Asiad podium in two shots. The lone gold medal bagged by India’s shuttlers came in 2022, thanks to the men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty. The country’s archers have also had middling outcomes. A gold has eluded the country in wrestling since 2018. More gold medals in athletics  will be welcome. At Aichi-Nagoya, the quality of silverware will matter.