BHUBANESWAR: As of Saturday, the sports ministry has approved 492 athletes to compete at the Asian Games in Nagoya, Japan from September 19 to October 4. The list, sent by the Indian Olympic Association, has been pruned in a few sports while another set of players' names would be announced soon.
The sports ministry has considered Asian ranking and performances of athletes before finalizing the list. If sources are to be believed, this is not the final list and another 25-30 athletes might be added in a few days. Among the 492 athletes, 265 are male while 227 are female.
The sports that suffered most due to doping are wrestling and weightlifting. In fact, it is understood that the final list of weightlifters have been pruned to just five from the original list of close to 10. Even in wrestling the names have been omitted after a wrestler tested positive recently.
In judo, even though the newly-former interim Judo Federation of India (JFI) requested for two more names, the ministry and the IOA adhered to the norm of top six in Asia in individual events and top eight in team events.
Yet, athletics has about 73 names led by double Olympic and world championships medallist Neeraj Chopra and the sport could be the highest in number of competitors at the Japan Games. Athletics is expected to give India’s medal tally a boost with most of the top athletes in medal bracket in the continent.
In aquatics, it’s all-male squad of 12 while in judo and taekwondo, it is all female of three players. As of now, Mixed Martial Arts has got one female but there is a possibility that names can be added in the next list – a total of 25-30 athletes. Same is the case of surfing. No name has been announced in surfing because of a court case and once it is cleared names of at least two surfers would be added.
Shooting, where India is expected to win handful of medals, will be adequately represented with 30 names – 15 male and 15 female – in it. Squash, another sport that is expected to win medals, has eight members – four each in male and female category.
Archery too has six male and six female archers in the squad led by Dhiraj Bommadevara. Out of the 12, there are six compound archers in the team.
Fencing has an astounding number of athletes 20 – eight male and 12 female. Boxing too has had its share of controversy and has 11 – five men and six women in the team.
