India’s performance at the Asian Games has come from Khandra to Dhing, with many stops in between and beyond

By Shamya Dasgupta

There will be comparisons with previous editions. The medals India had won then, but haven’t now. The winners who couldn’t win this time. (As if winning something once gives the athlete lifetime’s ownership over it.) In a country where the real struggle is often in even becoming an athlete, expectations are still sky high each time we come to an Olympic Games year, or the year of the Asian and Commonwealth Games.

What has changed this year at the Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games then? Well, it’s that those expectations are being met with a number of firsts. Like Neeraj Chopra, perhaps the biggest sporting news of the past few days.


The long-haired, wiry but muscular boy hurled the javelin 88.06 metres. Second-placed Liu Qizhen sent it 82.22 metres. That’s about as big as a winning margin can get. India’s first javelin gold at the Asian Games after two bronzes — in 1951 and in 1982. Chopra has now won three golds this year, including at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. He was the flag-bearer of the Indian team at Jakarta. Chopra, who hails from a family of farmers in a village called Khandra in Haryana, has had a long run-up from India Ignored. Much like Tajinder Pal Singh Toor.

His gold at shot put is not a first, but no less admirable for that. Heptathlete Swapna Barman — oh, Ms Magnificent! The medals have just poured in, haven’t they? Which brings us to Hima Das. “While all of you were sleeping, I rocked the world,” she apparently told her father after winning India’s first-ever gold medal at the Under-20 world championships in Finland earlier this year. The time difference made it easier for people to watch her run the 400-metre final the other day in Jakarta, and win silver. This is not a flash in the pan. Das, like Chopra, is keeping the good performances coming. That a teenage girl from a little town called Dhing in Nagaon, Assam, does it, and wins so thick and so fast, is cause for celebration.

And introspection about her struggle to get there. And what about Dutee Chand then? “As I waited at the starting blocks, I remembered all the trauma and insult I had suffered,” she said after becoming the first since PT Usha in 1986 to win a 100-metre silver. She lost gold by 0.02 seconds in a dramatic, almost filmi photo finish. And she followed it up with another silver, in the 200-metres sprint.

Indian athletics success stories are so much about struggling against the odds, but Chand’s saga stands out even among those. She fought the controversial (and unscientific) hyperandrogenism rule, dealt with misogyny and stigma, and the usual dose of official apathy in the lead up to the Asian Games. Just being there was victory in itself. The medals made it sweeter.

There are others too: Ankita Raina, whose bronze was a rare medal for India in women’s singles tennis; Dharun Ayyasamy, who won a silver at the 400 metre hurdles; Muhammad Anas Yahya, who won a silver in the 400 metres; Jinson Johnson with a silver in the 800 and a gold in the 1,500 metres! Really, this edition of the Games has been about exceeding expectations. In disciplines that India is not expected to do so well in. At the time this goes to press, India have already crossed their 2014 haul of 57 medals, which included 11 golds — they have 64 in total, and 13 gold.

Logic suggests the contingent will earn more glitter. But that’s not the important story here. India’s lack of sporting glory has never been for lack of talent. Away from the urban centres and official training set-ups, some athletes have always broken out, despite the odds. Usha from Kuttali in Kerala; Milkha Singh from Govindpura in Punjab; Vijender Singh from Kaluwas in Haryana; Karnam Malleswari from Amadalavalasa – the list is a long one.

This edition of the Asian Games has only added to the call for focus on small-town India, hungry-for-success India — from Khandra to Dhing, with many stops in between and well beyond. Not that talent scouts and management companies are not aware, they are. And doing a stellar job on many counts. But more, the boys and girls need more. We need to do more, as some of us remember to pipe up and chorus every once in a way.