Sports Ministry To Conduct Review Meeting Over Asian Games
While India won nine medals in archery, including a historic gold in women’s individual recurve, performances in shooting and athletics didn’t match up to Hangzhou.
The Sports Ministry will conduct a review of the Indian contingent’s performance at the 2026 Asian Games along with representatives of the National Sports Federations (NSFs) on October 13.
India finished the 2026 Asian Games at fourth place on the medal tally — the same as the last edition — but there was a drop in gold medals and total medals. India won 85 medals, including 21 gold, 27 silver and 37 bronze. The overall medal tally dropped by 21 as compared to the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games with seven less golds.
“A lot needs to change. We are investing a lot of money on sports but some questions need to be asked, especially to experienced athletes,” a source from the Sports Ministry said.
While India won nine medals in archery, including a historic gold in women’s individual recurve, performances in shooting and athletics didn’t match up to Hangzhou. In badminton, India’s medal count fell from three to one.
“Our strong sports underperformed this time at the Asian Games. We will surely review what went wrong in these events and how we lost these medals,” the source said.
The Ministry will also assess the funds released through the flagship Target Olympics Podium Scheme (TOPS) for elite athletes. “The emerging athletes were the ones that saved the campaign in the last few days. The experienced ones need to be accountable,” the source added further.
As per the Ministry officials, 89 experienced athletes (who have participated in Asian Games before) couldn’t come back with a medal. Out of these 89, 34 athletes from nine sporting disciplines belong to the TOPS scheme, where the government has invested Rs 27.16 crores on these athletes.
A total of nine athletes were injured before and during the Asian Games. Neeraj Chopra and Rishikanta Singh were injured before the games but there were others who got injured in Japan.
“We will look into how the clearance of the injured athletes came through. A few of them didn’t start and were cleared by Federations for the Games. We will review this and see what can be done in the future to avoid such a situation,” the source said.
In athletics, Jyothi Yarraji (110m hurdles) did not start, while in the triple jump Praveen Chithravel (triple jump) pulled out on the runway. Varun Sanyal, an MMA fighter, was declared medically unfit and failed to make weight for the men’s traditional 77kg quarter-final bout.
