The closing ceremony at the Nagoya City Mizuho Park Athletic Stadium is still to come, with double gold medallist Neeru Dhanda set to be India’s flag bearer. But India’s campaign at the 2026 Asian Games wrapped up on Saturday with a late gold rush in archery, wrestling and hockey.
India had sent 495 athletes to Aichi-Nagoya, who gave their all — physically and mentally — across 36 sporting disciplines over 15 days. The contingent returned with 85 medals — 21 gold, 27 silver and 37 bronze — recording the nation’s second-best performance at the Games.
India’s best-ever performance came at the Hangzhou Games in 2023, when it won 18 more medals, including seven more golds. On paper, that might paint a grim picture for India. But the nation arrived in Japan with a contingent 25% smaller than the one it had sent to Hangzhou.
Deep Dive
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The opening days raised plenty of concerns, with a dearth of medals, near-misses and heartbreaks. But the athletes turned things around in the second half, producing a medal rush that allowed India to close the Games on a high.
And before the focus shifts entirely to the build-up for the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, we take one last look at India’s Asian Games campaign and break it down sport by sport — where the campaign delivered, and where it quietly fell apart.
HITS — Six sports carried the best storylines of the Games.
Archery: India matched its own record from the 2022 Games with another nine-medal haul, and yet there was more to the campaign in Aichi-Nagoya. As usual, India completed a clean sweep in the compound team events, but unfortunately failed to defend the two other golds on offer in the individual categories.
The breakthrough, however, came in recurve, with 17-year-old Kumkum Mohod capping off her campaign with three medals — two golds and a silver. In fact, this was the first time India had won an Asian Games gold in recurve.
Boxing: India’s zero golds in Hangzhou were converted into three in Aichi-Nagoya. Overall, India managed six medals, two more than in 2023, making for a far more successful campaign. The Asian Games were always a litmus test after the high of the CWG in July, but Lovlina Borgohain (75kg), Parveen Hooda (65kg) and Ankush Panghal (80kg) all turned their 2022 podium finishes into gold.
Wrestling: Another sport that saw no golds in 2023 produced two top-of-the-podium finishes this time, with Aman Sehrawat (57kg freestyle) and Sujeet Kalkal (65kg freestyle) emerging as champions. Sujeet had also defeated the Olympic champion en route to India’s first wrestling gold at the Asiad since 2018.
But the bigger significance of a six-medal campaign was that two of those medals came in Greco-Roman, with Nitesh Siwach becoming the first Indian in 64 years to reach the final in the discipline.
Overall, India capped its best wrestling campaign since Jakarta 1962, when it won 12 medals — three gold, six silver and three bronze.
Team dominance: The golds across men’s and women’s kabaddi and cricket were well on the cards even before the contingent had reached Japan. In both sports, India have been the undisputed champions in Asia. In cricket, that dominance extends to the world, especially in the T20 format.
The men’s hockey gold was also on expected lines, but what the women’s team achieved was one of the single best stories of the Games — ending a 44-year wait for an Asiad gold.
Golf: The historic silver in 2023, won by Aditi Ashok, turned into a historic gold from Pranavi Urs as the Indian held her nerve after conceding a three-shot overnight lead to clinch the women’s individual title.
Overall, India won two medals, with the other being a women’s team silver featuring Ashok and Diksha Dagar.
Athletics: Athletics is perhaps the clearest case of numbers not telling the whole story. On paper, India won 24 medals and produced one gold — down from six golds in 2022 — with the difference coming in a shift towards silver and bronze this time.
But India also broke five national records during the competition and produced several historic firsts. Sawan Barwal ended India’s 44-year wait for an Asian Games men’s marathon medal, Sarvesh Kushare won the nation’s first men’s high jump medal since 1970, while Baranica Elangovan became India’s first Asian Games medallist in women’s pole vault.
India also missed injured javelin star Neeraj Chopra, who had won gold last time, but Yashvir Singh and Rohit Yadav made up for that with a 2-3 finish.
MISSES — Five sports told the opposite story: sharp declines, or outright historic lows.
Tennis: There was plenty of chaos surrounding the tennis contingent heading into the Games, and the unit returned empty-handed for the first time since 1986. India reached as far as the quarter-finals in two events but fell short in both, with Sumit Nagal bowing out in men’s singles and top seeds Anirudh Chandrasekar and N Sriram Balaji going down in men’s doubles.
Badminton: From the Hangzhou highs, where India won three medals, including a gold, the contingent could manage only a solitary bronze this time, which came in the men’s team event. The most disappointing result came from defending champions Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, who suffered an opening-round exit against a pair ranked 36 places below them.
Table tennis: Both teams exited before the medal rounds. The men’s team lost in the group stage, while the women’s team suffered a quarter-final defeat. India’s lone table tennis medal at this Asiad was a bronze, won by the Manush Shah–Diya Chitale mixed doubles pair, who were beaten by China in the semifinal.
Squash: India won two gold medals at the 2022 Games but returned with none this time. Anahat Singh and Abhay Singh stood on the verge of history in the singles events, but both lost in the final, while the men’s and mixed doubles title-holders lost in the semifinals.
Shooting: Perhaps the biggest disappointment came from shooting. India’s most decorated sport fell from 22 medals, including seven golds, in 2022 to 15 medals, including three golds, this time. Several individual gold contenders — the women’s 10m air pistol, the women’s 50m rifle 3 positions and the men’s trap team — missed the podium entirely.