The unexpected joy: The Indian stars who achieved success against the odds
Young shooters Sift Samra and Palak Gulia, TT "twins" Ayhika and Sutirtha and distance runner Parul Chaudhary all made a great impression at Hangzhou
The lead-up to any big event is all about the predictions. How many medals can your country get? Who will win those medals? In which sports will those medals come? But the actual Games are all about those predictions getting turned inside out.
Few things in sport bring greater joy than the unexpected. You sit there expecting the favourites to do their thing but then comes along someone else, inspired by the moment, the setting or perhaps the stars themselves. They shrug off the pressure to produce a performance for the ages... one that sets the tongues wagging and has us sitting on the edge of our seats.
Every athlete who goes to the Asian Games has something to prove. To some it isn't about the medals -- the goals are more modest. A personal best, a national record, a place in the final or the semi-final, a game against the best in the world. Not everyone shouts from the rooftops but it is serious business.
The toughest thing for an athlete is to build momentum; momentum built on steady success. You can have the odd unquestionable, unexplainable genius. But sustained success in a sport takes work. A lot.
But still, for everything there has to be a starting point. And for Sift Samra, Palak Gulia, Kishore Jena, the table tennis doubles team of Sutirtha Mukherjee and Ayhika Mukherjee, Parul Chaudhary and a few others, that starting point is the Asian Games.
Samra, a medical student, gave herself a year to succeed in shooting. Her gold medal in the 50m rifle three positions was the first individual title won by an Indian rifle shooter in the Asian Games and it came in an event that has traditionally been weaker for the women.
The 22-year-old sure made the most of that year. Last October, she won gold at the National Games, followed it up with her first national title in Thiruvananthapuram. More medals followed in 2023 -- her first individual World Cup medal (bronze) in Bhopal and a gold at the World University Games in Chengdu, China in August. A fifth at the World Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan had already sealed an Olympics quota place. The Asian Games, though, are a challenging place. India's best have faltered there in the past.
Try telling that to Sift. She shot a world record score of 469.6 -- and such was her dominance that the next best, China's Qiongyue Zhang, was a whopping 7.3 points behind.
"I didn't start well but when I looked at the scoreboard, I thought nobody else had done well either and I had enough time to kick on," she said after winning her gold.
Palak Gulia, just 17, worked her magic in the 10m air pistol range. A reluctant shooter who wasn't all in until she became all-in post Covid might just have to reset her career goals. She began her competition with a 9.1 but didn't let that bother her in the least.
"I told myself there are still 23 shots to go in the match. It is good to have a bad shot early and get it out of your system," she said.
As with Sift, Palak showed that pressure is what you make of it. Both of them just went out there and did their thing. That is easier said than done but the challenge, now that they will be burdened with expectations, will be to do the same in Paris too.
The success of Kishore Jena, who till two years ago was hurling the javelin in the 74-75m region, is just as heartening. With Pakistan's Arshad Nadeem pulling out due to a knee injury, it looked like Neeraj Chopra's run to the gold would have no challengers.
But the 28-year-old from Odisha registered two throws over 85m, hitting 86.77m in his third go and following it with 87.54m (both personal bests), to first take the lead in the competition, and after getting the best out of Neeraj, who had to produce a throw of 88.88 (his season's best) to clinch gold, get even closer.
It augurs well for India because if Jena can continue to improve along his current trajectory, two medals in the men's javelin might not be an empty dream. The other javelin throwers around the world won't be standing still but neither will Jena.
Another big surprise -- a contender for India's moment of the Asiad -- was when Sutirtha and Ayhika (not related but the best of friends) combined to beat China's world champions Cheng Meng and Wang Yidi with a tenacious display of tactical ingenuity that had all of India searching for 'Dr Neubauer Gorilla' -- the anti-spin rubber that played a huge role in pushing the Chinese off-track. They finished with a bronze, but in their heads this is where it truly begins.
However, the sight that truly warmed the hearts of all those watching was Parul Chaudhary sprinting past Japan's Ririka Hironaka on the home stretch to clinch victory in the women's 5,000m. Hironaka has a personal best of 14:52.84 in the event while Chaudhary's PB is 15:10.35. But on that night in Hangzhou, these numbers mattered little.
"Last night, I was tired after winning the steeplechase silver. I slept only for three hours, and since I wasn’t able to win a gold medal in steeplechase, I wanted to get a gold in 5000 anyhow. God was kind tonight," said Parul after the win. "In the last 50 metres, I was thinking that my (Uttar Pradesh) government would give me a nice job. If it is a DSP, nothing like it."
Every athlete needs to find their own motivation and if this is what worked for her, then the government should do its absolute best to help her reset her goals ahead of Paris.
As the Asian Games start coming to a close, the memory of these moments promise to stay on. They brought a smile to our faces and unexpected joy has a way of nestling in our hearts a lot longer than most can imagine.
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