Guangzhou, Nov. 27: A month after producing their best-ever show in the Commonwealth Games, India underlined its rising sporting prowess by bagging the biggest medal haul in the Asian Games which concluded here on Saturday.
India, who finished sixth on Friday with 14 gold, 17 silver and 33 bronze for a record 64-medal haul, maintained that position after the end of the final day’s events.
The sixth spot on the medal rostrum by India is the best it has attained since 1986 at Seoul, where the country ended fifth with a more modest haul of 5-9-23.
But a quarter century ago there was no Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and the rest of the former Soviet bloc to make the competition as stiff as it was here. In fact, Kazakhstan finished higher than India at fifth in Guangzhou.
The 14 gold India won in Guangzhou is the second best after the inaugural edition in 1951 in New Delhi where the country finished second with 15 gold, 16 silver and 20 bronze for a total medal haul of 51. The 1951 Games though was contested by just 11 countries whereas the 16th edition had 45 nations in fray.
The record medal tally of 64 in the Asian Games came a month after India won 101 medals (39-26-36) to finish second ahead of the likes of England and Canada in the Commonwealth Games.
Out of the 14 gold India won in Guangzhou, the highest number of five came from athletics and two each were won in boxing, kabbadi and tennis and one each from shooting, cue sports and rowing. Just like in many earlier editions of the Asian Games, athletics contributed the lions share to India’s number of gold medals in this addition also.
AC Ashwini (400m hurdles and women’s 4x400 relay) and tennis star Somdev Devvarman (men’s singles and doubles) won two gold medals while Preeja Sreedharan bagged a gold and a silver — in women’s 10,000m and 5000m respectively.