Revisiting India’s top moments at the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games
India returned from the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, with a record 106 medals — 28 gold, 38 silver and 40 bronze — achieving the campaign slogan “Iss baar, 100 paar” on October 7, 2023. The haul represented a new high for the country at the continental Games.
Before Hangzhou, India’s best Asian Games total was 70 medals at Jakarta 2018; crossing the triple‑figure barrier on October 7, 2023, set a new benchmark for Indian sport and, the country said, placed it among the continent’s leading sporting nations while raising the standard for future Games. The achievement closed a long-standing gap in overall medal returns and provided momentum for upcoming multi-sport events.
In track and field, the men’s javelin final saw Neeraj Chopra recover after technical glitches disrupted his opening attempt; Kishore Kumar Jena briefly led with a personal best of 86.77m before Chopra produced a season-best throw of 88.88 meters to retain gold and Jena took silver. Avinash Sable became the first Indian man to win Asian Games gold in the 3,000m steeplechase, leading from the gun and finishing in an Asian Games record time of 8:19.50 by nearly four seconds. Less than 24 hours after taking silver in the 3,000m steeplechase, Parul Chaudhary came from behind Ririka Hironaka on the final bend of the women’s 5,000m to surge into second and lunged across the line to win gold by 0.23 seconds.
In racquet sports, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty secured India’s first-ever Asian Games badminton gold by defeating South Korea’s Choi Sol-gyu and Kim Won-ho in straight games, a result the report linked to their status as the world’s top-ranked pair and which ended a 41-year wait for an Indian finalist in the discipline. In table tennis, the unseeded pairing of Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee upset China’s reigning world champions Chen Meng and Wang Yidi 3-1 in the women’s doubles quarter-finals in the host arena, earning India’s first-ever women’s doubles medal at the Asian Games.
India’s compound archery squad completed a clean sweep of all five available gold medals at Hangzhou, with Jyothi Surekha Vennam and 21-year-old Ojas Pravin Deotale each completing hat-tricks by winning individual, mixed-team and their respective team events; the sweep ended decades of South Korean supremacy in continental archery, according to the report.
The men’s hockey team, guided by head coach Craig Fulton and captain Harmanpreet Singh, scored 58 goals through the preliminary rounds and defeated defending champions Japan 5-1 in the final to reclaim continental gold; the victory also guaranteed automatic qualification for the Paris 2024 Olympics. In equestrian dressage, the team of Anush Agarwalla, Hriday Vipul Chheda, Divyakriti Singh and Sudipti Hajela finished with an overall score of 209.205 to edge China and Saudi Arabia and claim India’s first equestrian Asian Games gold since the 1982 New Delhi Games.
In men’s team squash, Abhay Singh produced the deciding performance against Pakistan’s Noor Zaman: with the tie level at 1-1 he trailed 8-10, saved two championship points and then won four consecutive rallies to take the match 12-10 and secure gold amid emotional celebrations on court.
The Hangzhou campaign’s 106-medal total surpassed India’s previous best and, organisers and commentators said in the report, will inspire the contingent competing in Aichi-Nagoya at the next Asian Games.