Asian games: India wins gold in kabaddi

Incheon: India brought the curtains down on their campaign in the 17th Asian Games, maintaining their domination of kabaddi with two gold medals as the country rose a rung to eighth in the overall standings on the penultimate day of competitions here on Friday. With two gold medals coming on Friday, India were placed eighth on the table with a total haul of 57 medals – 11 gold, nine silver and 37 bronze.

China continued to be at the top with an impressive haul of 329 (145-103-81) followed by hosts South Korea 222 (75-70-77) and Japan 190 (46-72-72).

The medal collection was well below India’s expectation as they had managed a haul of 65 – 14 gold, 17 silver and 34 bronze – in the previous edition of the Games in Guangzhou.

With no Indian participation on the last day of competitions on Saturday, the country’s overall standing can change depending on others’ performance.

On Friday, staging a fantastic second-half recovery, Indian men surged to gold by defeating Iran 27-25 in a thrilling final at the Songdo University Gymnasium.

India thus completed a golden double on the kabaddi mat for the second successive edition after the women defeated the same nation 31-21 in their final held earlier in the day.

The country thus boosted its overall gold tally to 11 on the final day of competitions here.

But it was touch and go for the Indian men, who have won the gold medal with ease on the six previous occasions since kabaddi was introduced in the 1990 Games at Beijing.

They played catch-up with Iran for most part of the game before drawing level with the last seven minutes of the 40-minute match left.

The winners were trailing by a big margin of 13-21 at half time and a huge upset was on the cards before the defending champions pulled it around in the second half with some aggressive raiding and smart catching.

Captain Rakesh Kumar played with a bandaged head after getting injured by a rival defender’s knee during his raid in the second half.

Rakesh said at half time, the strategy chalked out was to pack off Iran quickly for a ‘lona’ — with only four players of the rivals left as compared to their own five — at that stage and come back into the game.

India started on the wrong foot against the super-fit Iranians who looked like men possessed as they raided with gusto and defended with zeal to jump to a 17-7 lead before the Indians, who even conceded a ‘lona’ (after being all out), knew what happened.

Experienced raider Jasvir Singh appeared to be a bit overconfident and paid the penalty for that as he was packed off when raiding thrice in the initial stages.

It was left to India’s most experienced player Anup Kumar to pull in three points with a good raid and narrow the lead.

With five minutes left for the end of the opening half, India trailed 11-18 which became 13-21 before the first half ended.

The crucial turnaround happened soon after the start of the second half when India secured a ‘lona’ and then caught up with their rivals at 21-all.

They, however, slipped down to 21-24 before staging another recovery to catch up at 24-all when seven minutes were left.

Anup raided to secure a valuable point to help India lead 25-24, the first time they had done in the entire match.

They added one more when Iranian’s fast raider Meraj Sheykh was caught and though Anup failed in his next raid, Meraj was again caught just as the clock ticked to full time with India ahead by two points.

Earlier, Indian women too staged a strong second half performance to get the better of a fighting Iran 31-21 to retain the gold.

The Indian women led 15-11 at the halfway stage of the 30-minute final but then put up a determined show in the second half to maintain their supremacy for the second edition running, having clinched gold when the event made its debut four years ago in Guangzhou.

They, in fact, had only a two-point lead at 12-10 soon after securing the first of their two lonas (all outs) in the gold medal contest against the fitter-looking Iranian women who played with head scarves and leggings.

Abhilasha Mhatre then effected a crucial raid to not only get back two points for her side but also revive two players who had been packed off by Iran’s aggressive raider Khalaj Ghazal.

Thereafter, India took firm control from the first five minutes of the second half following a strong raid by Abhilasha Mhatre to take a 19-15 lead.

They got another timely lona in the seventh minute to lead 25-16 and there ended Iran’s hopes though they tried to stage a fight back towards the end.

Iranian women were in tears after the loss, having come here with a mission to dethrone India for the gold medal. The team even had a computer software engineer and a doctorate in agriculture in its ranks.

There was, however, no cheer for India’s taekwondo players at the Asian Games with Shaloo Raikwar and Margarette Maria losing their respective quarterfinal bouts.

Shaloo lost her 73kg quarterfinal bout to Alfahad Abrar of Kuwait. Both the players finished 3-3 after the regulation four rounds but Abrar was declared ‘Winner on Superiority’ as the Indian had conceded two penalty points against her rival’s one.

Later, Maria lost 1-15 to China’s Li Donghua in the 73kg quarterfinal.

In volleyball, India prevailed over Qatar 3-2 in a hard-fought contest to finish fifth in the men’s volleyball competition.

In men’s 5th-6th place classification match at the Songnim Gymnasium here, the Indians rallied to beat the Qataris 25-21 20-25 25-22 20-25 15-10 in a keenly contested match, which lasted an hour and 47 minutes.
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