Gold awaited but shooters deliver silver for India at Asiad
Gold continued to elude India but the shooting range delivered medals for the second successive day at the Asian Games on Monday, while the country's first-ever Mixed Martial Arts medal was overshadowed by heartbreak after Suchika Tariyal missed out on a place in the final by just 700 grams.
Suchika had to settle for bronze in the women's traditional 60kg category after her semifinal against Singapore's Hui Hoon Teo ended in a draw. Under the technical rules, the lighter fighter advanced to the final.
Suchika, 36, was visibly distraught after the result, with the medal that made her India's first Asian Games medallist in MMA carrying a sense of what might have been.
India's overall medal tally stood at six -- four silver and two bronze -- as the wait for gold continued.
The shooting range produced three of those medals on Monday, with Himanshu Dhillon winning individual silver and Rudrankksh Patil taking bronze in the men's 10m air rifle. The duo, along with teenager Parth Mane, also secured silver in the team event.
The three medals took India's shooting tally to five -- four silver and a bronze.
China once again set the benchmark, with world number one Sheng Lihao, Changhong Zhang and Sihan Ma combining for 1,899.0 points to win gold and better their own world record of 1,898.4 set in Cairo last year.
The team silver also highlighted the performances of 18-year-old former junior world champion Mane and 21-year-old Dhillon, who is beginning to establish himself on the senior circuit, where consistency and pressure take on greater significance.
Suchika's heartbreak
Suchika etched her name in the history books as India's first Asian Games medallist in MMA, but there was little celebration after her semifinal.
The fighter from Kiloi village in Haryana's Rohtak district has built a career across disciplines. She is a 2024 world champion in jiu-jitsu, represented India in judo at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and competed in kurash at the 2022 Asian Games.
On Monday, she fought her way through a closely contested semifinal only to be denied by the weight rule after the bout ended level.
The 700-gram difference at the morning weigh-in proved decisive, allowing the lighter fighter to progress in case of a draw.
"This is more than my life. I will never forget that I came to Japan and got a medal for my country. I can now happily die," Suchika later told PTI.
The bright spots
There was plenty of positive news for India across other disciplines.
The women's hockey team produced one of the day's biggest wins, thrashing Indonesia 17-1. A gold in the Asian Games could also secure India a place at the 2028 Olympic Games.
The men's badminton team advanced to the quarterfinals with a 3-0 win over Bangladesh. Lakshya Sen, K Srikanth and Ayush Shetty won their singles matches, making the remaining doubles and singles matches unnecessary in the five-match tie.
In boxing, Sumit Kundu also made a winning start in the 70kg category.
Both Indian table tennis teams advanced to the quarterfinals with identical 3-0 wins over Pakistan. The women's team topped Group F with three wins from three matches, while the men's side bounced back with a convincing victory.
The kabaddi teams too made winning starts, with the men's side defeating Japan 49-24.
Swimming continues to disappoint
Swimming, meanwhile, remained a source of disappointment for India.
Two-time Olympian Srihari Nataraj finished 10th and last in the men's 50m backstroke final. He clocked 25.52 seconds, slower than his 25.37-second timing in the heats earlier in the day.
Most of the other Indian swimmers also failed to progress beyond the heats, making it another difficult day in the pool.
India's campaign in soft tennis also came to an end in the mixed doubles round of 16, where Aadhya Tiwari and Jay Meena lost 2-5 to the Philippines' Christy Sanosa and Sherwin Ray Nuguit.
The Indian pair went down 4-2, 2-4, 2-4, 3-5, 2-4, 5-3, 6-8 in a hard-fought contest.
