Key Takeaways
- The Daughters of India secured India’s 100th gold at the Hangzhou Asian Games.
- The Indian women’s kabaddi team edged Chinese Taipei 26‑25 in a thrilling final.
- Archers Jyothi Surekha Vennam and Aditi Swami added gold and bronze in compound events.
Hangzhou: The daughters of India made their countrymen proud and brought the tears of joy cascading down as they fetched India their 100th medal here on Saturday.
The Indian women’s kabaddi team won gold after pulling off a thriller 26-25 against Chinese Taipei at the Asian Games 2023.
This was India’s third women’s kabaddi title at the continental meet while Chinese Taipei upgraded their 2018 bronze to silver at Hangzhou.
The gold medal match was as closely fought as the Hangzhou campaign opener when both sides clashed for a 34-34 tie.
Chinese Taipei inflicted an all-out on the Indian team in the second half, however, India outscored them in the raiding department.
Meanwhile, an all-Indian men’s final between Ojas Pravin Deotale and Abhishek Verma completed a compound archery gold clean sweep.
Deotale beat Abhishek 149-147 in the men’s individual gold medal match. It is the third gold medal for Deotale while Abhishek finished with a gold and a silver.
Jyothi Surekha Vennam won 149-145 against So Chae-won of the Republic of Korea in the women’s individual compound gold medal match.
While Jyothi shot a nine on her first arrow, the 14 remaining arrows were all 10s, equalling the Asian Games record score, once again.
Indian compound archer Aditi Swami, meanwhile, beat Indonesia’s Ratih Zilizati Fadhly 146-140, securing the bronze medal.
Aditi, India’s first-ever individual world champion, scored a perfect 30 at the fourth end while shooting 29 in the others. Indian athletes have now won 99 medals at Hangzhou.
Earlier at the 19th Asian Games, the Indian men’s, women’s and mixed compound archers won the gold medal.
On the other hand, the women’s recurve team settled for bronze and the men’s recurve team bagged silver on Friday.
