India’s Asian Games 2022 Mission: 100 medals with 30 gold

Madhukar Jha
Sep 5, 2018 · 9 min read

Jakarta-Palembang 2018 proved to be a spirit lifting mission for India. Our contingent returned with more medals (69) than in the previous 17 editions of the Games and the gold medal count (15) had only been reached in the inaugural edition, back in 1951.

However, does the best ever medal haul mean that this was our most successful performance at the Asiad? If the performance at the Asian Games is a barometer of progress, then are we moving in the right direction? And where should we be headed or what should be aspire for, over say the next couple of editions?

Here’s an attempt to find the answers by looking intently at some numbers.

Up and down the medal table

India finished the inaugural edition at home in second place and returned to the top three only once (Jakarta 1962). Our lowest ranking came in Beijing 1990, where a lone kabaddi gold could do little to salvage a disappointing show all across.

Since 1994, when the erstwhile Soviet nations joined the Olympic Council of Asia, India has finished 8th on four out of seven occasions, including in three out of the last four editions.

However, a finer reading of the figure above will show that it is dangerous to draw too many conclusions simply from the position in the medal tally, even though a high ranking is a very legitimate goal to aspire to.

After all, we did finish seventh (2010) and sixth (2002) in this century with smaller medal collections than in Indonesia, while we won just 23 medals in 1990 as well as 1994, but finished considerably better in Hiroshima 1994 than in Beijing 1990.

Ranking depends on the total medal haul, the count of gold medals within the medal collection as well as how these numbers match against other participating nations.

So, to interpret the story behind the rankings better, let’s take a look at how our performance has changed over time in terms of relative rank achieved as well as the share of total medals won.

With the first few editions attracting fewer countries as participants, even finishes in the top five may be deemed to be a lesser or at best an equal achievement than the eighth place or better that we have consistently achieved over the last few editions.

The positive news here is that there has been a significant upward movement since the era before the 1982 Delhi Asiad. Barring the big slip in 1990, we have made our way to the top 20% of the sporting nations in Asia as compared to the top 25%-35% range where we existed for the previous few editions.

However, as noted earlier, rankings reflect not only the count of the total medals won, but also give significant weight to the count of gold medals won.

Assuming for the moment, that our first objective should be to work towards increasing our overall medal haul, let us see how we stand in terms of the share of total medals won.

The chart showing the share of medals does provide better reading. After the high of playing hosts in 1982, India’s performances quickly slipped over the next three editions,

If 1986 looks like a respectable showing, it was only thanks to golden girl PT Usha winning four of the five gold medals we won (wrestler Kartar Singh picking up the fifth) and a massive medal haul on the penultimate day, where we almost doubled our medal haul of Seoul ‘86.

Hiroshima 1994 saw India hit rock bottom, but since then there has been progress to the point where we are back to winning almost 4.5% of the total medals that we did in 1986 and in the few editions preceding New Delhi 1982.

The fact that we have gained back our share with a larger number of stronger competitors in fray is definitely laudable. Some of it may be thanks to eating into the share of lower ranked nations and not necessarily catching up with the teams above, but then a lot of being successful in sports is being ruthless when it matters.

The Asiad Top Three — A League of their Own

China, first took part in the Asian Games in Tehran 1974. That year, it finished third behind Japan and hosts Iran. South Korea finished fourth.

That was the last time that the three Asian sports super powers did not keep the podium for themselves.

After moving from third to second in 1978, China topped the table in 1982 and has not stepped down since.

South Korea meanwhile, established itself as the second best nation above Japan, till this edition, where Japan finished second after a gap of twenty four years. Given that, the second place in 1994 was earned at home, this must be seen as a significant shock and the Koreans might be asking some tough questions.

But, really our interest in these three is just to know that the top three for now is taken and while we may want to plan an assault there sometime in the future, for now let us worry about what is more achievable in the medium term.

Can India aspire to be the best of the rest?

With a top three exclusive club established, any thought of challenging it must be preceded by a plan to become the dominant force in Asia after China, South Korea and Japan.

So, the fourth rank could be something to aspire for, but are we a serious contender for it? Who else is gunning to get there?

While India has never finished fourth in Asiad history (we have finished better than fourth twice), we have on a couple of occasions since 1978, actually won more medals than the team that finished fourth.

This means if we had been able to convert a few silvers to golds, we may have achieved the ‘best of the rest’ tag in 1982 as well as 2010.

If we observe the period from 1990 till 2018, we see that the team in fourth usually gets around 80–90 medals and is usually Kazakhstan.

This trend has been broken only when the host has not been one of China, Japan or South Korea, though Doha 2006 saw Kazakhstan take fourth spot anyway, while it missed out in Guangzhou 2010 to Iran.

Since we are not going to host at least the next two editions of the Games (China and Japan will), given current trends we need to win at least eighty and perhaps close to a hundred medals (with more than 30 of them gold), to have a reasonable chance of finishing fourth.

So that gives us a good target to aim for in 2022. A total haul of 100 medals with 30 of them gold should be our aspiration and that should help push us to the top 10% of Asian sporting nations from the current top 20% bracket.

The competition is intense

Getting there will take a lot of doing. In fact, given the level of competition, even staying in the same place will require abandoning any feeling of complacency or taking the foot off the pedal.

This chart shows how many times different countries have featured in the 4th to 10th places in the Asian Games table since 1978.

India, Iran, Thailand, Chinese Taipei, North Korea, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are some of the most consistent nations according to this chart.

However, since Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan joined only in 1994 and changed the dynamics of the top of table significantly, let us look deeper at the frequency of 4th-10th finishes since Hiroshima in 1994.

A lot of interesting observations can be drawn from this chart.

The push that being a host nation provides is very evident. Thailand, Qatar and now Indonesia have all experienced their best finishes in this period as hosts.

In fact, Indonesia went from 17th at Incheon to fourth in 2018. It multiplied the medal count almost five times (from 20 to 98) and the gold medal count eight times (four to 31). The highest it had finished this century was 14th in 2002, meaning Indonesia did make the most of being hosts. However, it needs to be monitored over the next few editions to see if real progress has been made or this fourth place finish was an aberration.

Kazakhstan has been the clear dominant force within this pack, but it only finished ninth this time, giving all other contenders real hope that the exclusive club at the top is not turning into a top-four from a top-three.

The other countries that India must look at are Iran, Uzbekistan, Chinese Taipei and Thailand.

Iran has consistently finished above India and does exceptionally well at winning gold medals. It has won 20 or more golds from a total of about 60 medals in each of the last three editions. Even across all editions of the Asia Games, more than 30% of the medals it won have been gold medals — a feat that only China, Japan, South Korea and Qatar have been able to achieve.

Uzbekistan has never finished fourth, ended outside the top ten in Incheon but bounced right back to finish fifth for a third time in Jakarta-Palembang.

In spite of the general inconsistency, along with Kazakhstan and Iran, Uzbekistan may be classified as one of the three countries that may be classified as stronger than India, based on historical performances.

Then there are the equals — Thailand and Chinese Taipei.

Thailand managed to improve its medal count from 47 in 2014 to 73 in 2018, yet sank in ranking from 6th to 12th, largely because gold medals were scarce. However, as the generally lighter hue of Thailand’s bar in the last chart shows, it consistently outperforms India. In fact, in the six editions starting from 1998, India has outranked Thailand just twice, with one of them being in the latest edition where Thailand ended up winning more medals.

In terms of finishes in the medal table, Chinese Taipei is perhaps the closest to India — almost like an unwanted playmate who just won’t go away.

Starting from 1994, India : Chinese Taipei ranks have been as follows: eighth and seventh (‘94), ninth and sixth (‘98), seventh and eighth (‘02), eighth and tenth (‘06), sixth and seventh (‘10), eighth and ninth (‘14), eighth and seventh (‘18).

Last words — standing still is dangerous

So that leaves us with three countries (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Iran) that seem definitely stronger and two (Thailand and Chinese Taipei) who are at par or very close. And then there are others like North Korea — possibly desperate to get back to the days when it was challenging for fourth, as well as the likes of Qatar, Bahrain and of course Indonesia.

What that means is that if we don’t look upwards and set goals to get to the 100 medal mark by 2022, there is always a fear that even a little drop in the current tally could lead a handful of competitors to sneak in above.

So great show by the athletes who won, good job to the administration that has overseen a gradual increase in the share of medals, but the only way forward is to forget all about it and aim much higher for 2022!

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