Smiles, tears and a searching gaze: Enduring images from India’s Nagoya Asian Games campaign

Kumkum Mohod, a shy smile on her face, is flanked by a shell-shocked Chinese and a Korean; a frame that should feature prominently in India’s Asian Games Nagoya photo album. | Photo Credit: Screengrab/Sony LIV

The Nagoya Games are over. Within the fortnight there will be other tournaments India’s athletes will be competing in. Memories will fade.

How then are we going to remember these Asian Games?

Pictures help, of course. The ones that speak more than a thousand words and fire a million dreams.

There’s one that’s going to be iconic. It’s not from a match but from the podium, when it was all over. Kumkum Mohod, a shy smile on her face, is flanked by a shell-shocked Chinese and a Korean. The latter looks as if her favourite pet has just been put down. She has just witnessed first-hand a sporting aura built over 30 years come crashing down at the hands of a 17-year-old.

Five months after dramatically breaking the national record, recovering from a blackout to scramble across the line, Sawan Barwal cruised through the last few hundred meters to rewrite the mark and, in the process, marathon history. What followed was a scramble to secure a tricolour to carry. | Photo Credit: AP

There’s the one of the four Indian women’s relay runners — Vithya Ramraj, Kiran Pahal, M.R. Poovamma and Prachi Choudhary — soaked to the bone, flashing million-dollar grins and hastily made-up faces, jumping with abandon into a downpour at the Paloma Mizuho Stadium after holding off the charge of Asia’s finest quarter-milers to win India’s only gold medal in track and field at Nagoya.

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There’s another in which Parveen Hooda laughs ecstatically as she is twirled around the ring like a dance partner by the Olympic bronze medallist she has just beaten, securing a gold medal to replace the one that was taken from her three years ago.

How about the one where 20 pairs of hands act as one trampoline, throwing Sjoerd Marijne into the air after India’s hockey lionesses overturn the weight of history to beat Olympic silver medallists China? It’s a picture that mirrors one taken 44 years ago, when Indian hockey won its only other Asian Games women’s gold.

Wrestling Federation of India officials were seen clicking a picture with gold medal winner Aman Sehrawat and Antim Panghal barely minutes before Antim was to play her own final. She eventually lost, settling for silver. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Speaking of coaches, what about the one in which Olympic champion Peter Wilson — six-and-a-half feet tall — wraps five-foot-two Neeru Dhanda in a bear hug after she becomes the first Indian woman to win trap gold? A day later, the daughter of a farmer is going to add another gold in a sport synonymous with royalty.

Wonderful pictures, all.

But we are going to remember others too.

These are the ones that launched a thousand sighs; some not predicted.

There’s the one of India’s fatigued athletes sitting with their luggage at the airport, waiting to be allowed into their accommodation, denting Japan’s famed reputation for precision.

Then there were others, inevitable ones, which lay bare the reality that the motivations of athletes and those they answer to might not always meet.

Think of that shot of the two Indian rowers, Salman Khan and Satnam Singh, lying exhausted on the pier of the rowing arena after ensuring India didn’t return without a medal in rowing — but weeping because they couldn’t win gold after being forced into a new craft two days before their competition.

Satnam Singh and Salman Khan had secured a brave podium finish for India but, in the moment, could think of nothing more than missing out on gold. | Photo Credit: JONATHAN SELVARAJ

There’s another one where Sawan Barwal wanders around the Paloma Stadium looking helplessly for a flag after having just broken the Indian national record to win the country’s first marathon medal in more than 60 years.

What about the one posted proudly by a federation official himself — a picture taken with Antim Panghal ten minutes before her final? She is putting on a forced smile for the cameras even as she tries to focus on the biggest fight of her career.

We can’t forget these too.

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As the curtain comes down on the Nagoya Asian Games, these pictures capture the gamut of India’s experience here. It started with a lot of kvetching, went through a long spell of despair and ended in exultation.

India finished with 21 gold medals, 27 silver and 35 bronze.

Before the Games, the talk was about improving on the performance at Hangzhou. About building on the results at the Paris Olympics.

On the whole, Nagoya has fallen short.

India won 15 fewer medals and seven fewer golds than it did at Hangzhou. Some sports have serious introspection to do.

Shooting, down to three golds from seven last time, was rescued in the final three days almost single-handedly by Neeru’s heroics.

Athletics, which won six golds in 2023, was hauled away from humiliation by the willpower of its women’s quarter-mile quartet.

Wrestler Aman Sehrawat emotionally held the Indian tricolour close as he snapped up an important and confidence-restoring gold at the Asian Games | Photo Credit: REUTERS

Badminton returned with a single bronze.

Tennis returned with nothing.

But the slack was picked up elsewhere.

Archery stood out. It matched its Hangzhou medal haul but also won Olympic quotas in the compound mixed team and individual recurve events. And it has a star in Kumkum Mohod.

They probably know it too.

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Wrestling went from zero to two golds. Who knows — it might have been three had it not been for the nature of its officials.

Boxing stood out. It went from nothing to three medals, six in all.

Twenty-year-old Ankush Panghal’s gold in the men’s 80kg division, won after beating world champion Fazliddin Erkinboev, marks him out as one of the most exciting Indian men’s prospects in a long time.

Wrestling’s Sujeet has solidly stepped into the shoes of Bajrang Punia in the 65kg category.

And then there are the champions from Hangzhou and Paris who will leave Nagoya chastened.

That, too, is the point of a Games like this.

The landscape of sport is not static. Past performance counts for nothing. The medal you won three years ago does not give you a head start at the starting line. There are younger athletes coming, hungrier athletes coming, athletes who have spent the years since the last Games studying exactly what you do.

India’s gold in women’s hockey was its first in 42 years and secured a direct qualification for the LA Olympics in 2028. Amidst the euphoria of having clinched the biggest achievements of their careers, the players promptly picked up Marijne and tossed him in the air in celebration to give him due credit for this turnaround. After all, the result could kickstart a much-needed turnaround for the women’s game. | Photo Credit: R.V. Moorthy

That is sport.

Every Games will produce them.

What matters now is how honestly India learns from this one. Because Los Angeles is less than two years away.

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The pictures from Nagoya are proof of what India can be. A jubiliant rain-soaked relay quartet. A shy star on the podium signalling the dawn of a new age. Parveen laughing. Marijne airborne. Neeru in Peter Wilson’s embrace.

A 3-2 split decision went in Parveen’s favour in the final of the women’s 65kg category. But what followed was the moment of the fixture as she and her opponent, Chen Nien-chin of Chinese Taipei, shared an joyous, twirly hug in the ring. | Photo Credit: AP

They are pictures of a country that knows how to win. How to break reputations. How to make them.

The others are proof of what still gets in the way.

Two rowers crying on a pier. Sawan searching for a flag. An athlete smiling for a camera when she should have been preparing for the biggest fight of her life.

They are pictures of a system that still has work to do.

There is much to celebrate.There is also much to fix. Two years later, the pictures we will remember will tell us which path was taken.

Published on Oct 04, 2026

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