On Saturday morning, Kumkum Mohod became the first Indian to win a gold in the individual recurve event. On Friday evening, the women’s hockey team, a side so fractured and disunited at the beginning of the year, upstaged China to occupy the top step of the podium.
In the initial days of the Asian Games, when even silver and bronze medals were hard to come by, it was women athletes who kept the trickle alive. Mirabai Chanu (weightlifting) claimed the first ever medal at this level. Elsewhere, the Indian women’s cricket team met expectations with a dominant win to seal gold.
At the shooting ranges, usually a reliable source of good news at any multi-discipline games, Suruchi Singh, part of the mixed 10 m air pistol, won a gold. In athletics, the country is among the best at the Asian level. But that dominance hadn’t necessarily translated to performances at Nagoya. Neeru Dhanda is probably one of the best athletes of the Asian Games, with two gold and one silver, identical with Mohod.
That caveat, though, doesn’t apply to the women’s 4x400m squad. India has a heritage to safeguard in that event and athletes have always safeguarded that heritage with stirring wins. Right from ranges to the track and from the hockey turf to the boxing ring, India’s women athletes, so often and unfairly relegated to the background for a number of reasons, have again shown their grit and determination. This, then, is a celebration of them.
In the beginning of 2024, the women’s hockey team were in the middle of a rut with seemingly no solutions in sight. Janneke Schopmaan, one of the former chief coaches of the side, left soon after a teary admission to two mediapersons in the mixed zone after a Pro League encounter.
Late last year, Harendra Singh, another former chief coach of the side, left for various reasons, including allegations of questionable behaviour. The coaching methodology was also said to be outdated. It was a divided house. When Sports Authority of India decided a change had to be made, there was back and forth between Hockey India and Sjoerd Marijne, a coach who had already been there and done that. At the 2021 Games in Tokyo, he had helped them to an unforgettable journey before they ultimately finished fourth.
One can only hope that the gold will convince enough people to save the women’s Hockey India League: the franchise tournament said to be bleeding a lot of money with not enough interest.
Chanu is a fighter of the highest order. It’s how she won an Olympics medal in 2021. Even after years of planning, she was menstruating on the day of her lift. Yet, she forced herself to compete through the pain barrier to win a medal. Over the last two years, though, pain had been the only friend in her life. Hospital rooms, endless injuries, loss of form... In Nagoya, though, she played all of her biggest hits to emerge with a shiny metal disc around her neck.
For 40 years and more, PT Usha and the women 400mH was one of those stories that used to be passed on from generation to generation. Vithya Ramaraj took a hammer to those stories as she broke the longest standing Indian national record in athletics en route a bronze in the event. 54.75 seconds. In isolation, they may just be four digits, with two of them separated by a decimal point. However, it’s now the new measure of excellence. Ramaraj is one of the Indian MVPs with three medals to her name (gold, silver, bronze).
In multi-discipline games like the Olympics or the Asiad, you tend to write off a few medals for they are that hard to win. In archery, for example, individual recurve is one of those. Ever since its inception into the programme in the 1978 Games, South Koreans had won nine of 12 in women’s individual recurve.
When the first streaks of blue appeared in Nagoya on Saturday, they were odds to make it 10 out of 14. Yet, Mohod went to a place where no Indian had been to before to win individual recurve gold. Recurve god, even?
Out of the 21 gold the country won, the women—either individually or as a team (not counting mixed teams)—have contributed more than 50%. Considering how this country has generally seen its women, that’s an achievement worthy of the highest honour.
