2026 Asian Games: How did India fare?

The 2026 Asian games were held at Aichi-Nagoya, Japan from 19th September to 4th October, 2026. The Indian contingent ended the campaign in fourth place with 21 Gold Medals, 27 Silver Medals and 37 Bronze Medals, a total of 85 Medals. China topped the table winning 162 Gold Medals and a total of a massive 314 medals. Japan finished in second place with 72 Gold Medals and a total of 240 medals while South Korea finished ahead of India in third place with 33 Gold Medals and a total of 134 medals. 

Although India failed to surpass the highs of Hangzhou 2023 where they returned with 107 medals, India did manage to finish strongly after a poor start to secure a fourth-place finish. 

Here we take a look at some of the records and key stats, the top-performing disciplines and the under-performing ones followed by conclusion – 

New Records, Key Stats and Historic Firsts 

• Vithya Ramraj broke P.T. Usha’s long-standing national record (55.42 seconds) in the 400m hurdles with a timing of 54.75 seconds, also bagging the bronze. 

• Neeru Dhanda became the first-ever woman Trap shooter to win an individual Gold, also creating a new Asian Games record of 28 shots from 30 targets.

• Indian pair of Suruchi Singh and Kamaljeet shot to a Gold Medal win with an Asian record of 484.6 in the 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team event. 

• India’s marathon-man Sawan Barnwal broke his own national record by 21 seconds, bagging a silver in Men’s Marathon with a timing of 2:11:37. India ended a 44-year drought to win a medal in the Men’s Marathon. 

• Parul Choudhary bettered her own national record by 3.79 seconds with a timing of 9.08.67 in the 3000m steeplechase event, winning a bronze. 

• Dev Meena set a Men’s pole vault national record of 5.50m even though he missed a podium finish narrowly. 

• The Indian Mixed Relay team of Animesh Kujur, Gurindervir Singh, Harita Bhadra and Sneha Shanuvali also clocked a new national record of 41.06 seconds on their way to the bronze medal. 

• Pranavi Urs became the first woman golfer to bag an individual Gold Medal at the Asian Games for India. 

• Baranica Elangovan became the first Indian pole vaulter to win a medal (Bronze) at the Asian Games. 

• 17-year-old Kumkum Mohod became the first Indian Recurve archer to win an Individual Gold Medal.

• India won its first-ever Gold medal in the Women’s Team Recurve Archery defeating multiple-times former champions South Korea in the final.

• Jay Meena won India’s first-ever medal (Bronze) in Soft Tennis Men’s Singles.  

• Suji Kataral won India’s first-ever Mixed Martial Arts (60kg category), earning a hard-fought Bronze medal.

• India swept the team events in Cricket, Hockey and Kabaddi winning the Gold in both the Men’s and the Women’s categories. 

• India’s only Gold in Athletics came in the Women’s 4×400 m relay composed of Vithya Ramraj, Kiran Pahal, Prachi Choudhary and Poovamma MR. 

• Gulveer Singh (Athletics), Vithya Ramraj (Athletics), Neeru Dhanda (Shooting), Kumkum Mohod (Archery), Chikhita Taniparthi (Archery), Sahil Jadhav (Archery) and Rudrankksh Patil (Shooting) all ended the campaign with outstanding performances, winning three medals each. 

• Cricketer Vaibhav Sooryavanshi became the youngest medal winner from India at 15 years, 6 months and 6 days old while Skeet Shooter Mairaj Ahmad Khan became the oldest medal winner at 50 years old. 

(P.S. Stats and numbers have been taken from www.olympics.com , https://olympic.ind.in/asian-games-2026/  and https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/asian-games 2026/ )

Top-Performing Disciplines 

The Top-performing disciplines at the 2026 Asian Games for India were – 

Archery – Archery came to India’s rescue at this edition of the Asian Games with India performing well in both the Compound and Recurve Archery. India swept the Compound Archery Team Events with a Gold in Men’s Team event, Women’s Team event and Mixed Team event. India also won one Bronze medal in the Men’s Compound Individual event. 

In the Recurve category, India outperformed in this edition with five medals including two Golds in Women’s Individual and Women’s Team event, a Silver in Men’s Team event, a Silver in Mixed Team event and a Bronze in Men’s Individual. 

Overall, the Archers brought home nine medals with five Gold medals, two Silver medals and two Bronze medals. India was the top-performing team in Asia in Archery at the 2026 Asian Games ahead of the usually dominant South Koreans – a huge positive for India’s chances at the LA 2028 Olympics. 

Boxing – The Indian Boxing contingent didn’t disappoint after the incredible success at the recently concluded Commonwealth Games. Three Indian boxers – Ankush Panghal (Men’s 80kg), Parveen Hooda (Women’s 65kg) and Lovlina Borgohain (Women’s 75kg) reached the final and all three won Gold medals. Priya Ghanghas (Women’s 60kg), Kapil Pokhariya (Men’s 90 kg) and Narender (Men’s +90kg) also confirmed a podium finish by reaching the semi-finals and winning the Bronze medal. 

India topped the Asian Games table in Boxing with three Golds and three Bronze medals – the country’s best Boxing performance at the Asian Games. 

Wrestling – Few of the wrestlers may have disappointed a bit but Indian wrestlers overcame their poor start to bring home some much-needed medals in the latter stages of the competition to make it a fairly successful Asian Games campaign. 

Notable performances came from Sujeet Kalkal (Men’s 65kg freestyle) and Aman Sehrawat (Men’s 57kg freestyle), both winning Gold in their respective categories. Sujeet upset the reigning Olympic champion Kotaro Kiyooka in the semi-finals enroute to his Gold medal while Aman Sehrawat defeated the reigning World Champion Han Chong Song of North Korea in the final to bring home the Gold. 

Antim Panghal (Women’s 53kg freestyle) and Nitesh Siwach (Men’s 97kg Greco-Roman) bagged a Silver medal each while Deepak Punia (Men’s 97kg freestyle) and Sunil Kumar (Men’s 87kg Greco-Roman) brought home the bronze. 

This was India’s best performance at the Asian Games, second only to the Jakarta Games in 1962 where India won 12 medals including three Golds. Here, India won six total medals with two Golds, two Silvers and two bronze. 

Under-performing Disciplines

Shooting – Indian Shooters are considered as one of the best in the world with several of them having also won Olympic and World Championship medals but this campaign from the shooting contingent was fairly underwhelming. 

Indian shooters bagged a total of 15 medals (three Gold, eight Silver and four Bronze medals) out of a possible 28 shooting events. In comparison, the Indian shooters delivered a superb performance in the previous edition in Hangzhou, China with a massive haul of 22 medals including seven gold, nine silver and six bronze medals. 

Indian shooters performed poorly in rifle and air pistol events. India’s biggest medal prospect Manu Bhaker returned empty-handed from the tournament. If not for the Skeet and Trap Shooting teams providing a haul of medals in team and individual events, winning two Gold medals towards the end of the tournament, the shooting campaign would have been a total disaster. 

Badminton – India’s badminton contingent produced a below-par performance at this Asian Games. Both the Men’s and Women’s teams failed to reach the semis and none of the individual players, Women’s and Men’s doubles players were able to secure a podium finish. 

This was India’s worst performance at the Asian Games. The last edition was a historic one for India as they won a Gold in Men’s doubles, a Silver in Men’s team event and an Individual Bronze in Men’s Singles, making it three medals from eight events. 

Tennis – Indian Tennis players had performed incredibly well at the Asian Games previously but this was an underwhelming campaign for them. The Tennis players returned empty-handed from the Games with none of our players or teams even making it to a Bronze medal match. This was again a dismal performance as much was expected from the likes of Sumit Nagal, Dhakshineswar Suresh, Yuki Bhambri, Ankita Raina and Rutuja Bhosale. 

India returned with a Mixed Doubles Gold and a Men’s Doubles Silver from Hangzhou in the last edition and with China and Japan producing more Tennis stars now, it’s only going to be difficult for India unless the players are supported by the Tennis Federation. 

Conclusion 

India started the campaign in a very disappointing manner especially with the underwhelming performances in shooting and Athletics early on but the athletes picked up the pace in the latter stages and led to a fourth-place finish behind China, Japan and South Korea.

After the massive success of the 2023 Asian Games, the expectations were huge as India was expected to push for 140 -150 total medals this time but it wasn’t so and compared to the 107 medals in the previous edition, 85 felt like an underwhelming number. Although some of our medal prospects failed to deliver, a few Indian athletes broke new ground, winning a first-ever medal or ending a long-standing drought. Some even broke national records and Asian records with their exceptional performances. 

Boxing, Archery and Wrestling were the most outstanding contributors and have given some hope for the LA 2028 Olympics. India also swept the team events in Cricket and Hockey which was another positive looking ahead to the LA 2028. 

The Indian Contingent weren’t as successful as we hoped for but now we need to look ahead to the future, towards the most elite multi-discipline event – the LA 2028 Olympics. If the Asian Games felt difficult, the level of the Olympics with so many top athletes participating is going to be even more challenging. 

The Indian athletes need to first ensure qualification to the showpiece event if they haven’t secured a qualification yet. Following that, considerable physical and mental preparation would still be required to ensure that our medal hopefuls maintain peak fitness, consistently enhance their performances, and stay motivated to give their very best in two years’ time.