New Delhi [India], September 18 (ANI): India shall be aiming to scale new heights on the Asian Games after registering their best-ever medal rely in the course of the 2018 version of the occasion. The newest version of the Asian Games will begin on September 23 in China’s Hangzhou and can go on until October 8.
The nineteenth version of the Asian Games will witness a 655-member robust Indian staff in motion in 41 disciplines out of 61. The video games shall be performed throughout 56 venues, with 481 gold medals on provide, as per Olympics.com.
Though the video games will formally begin on September 23, sports activities like cricket, soccer, volleyball and seaside volleyball will kickstart from September 19 onwards.
The males’s and girls’s cricket groups, led by Ruturaj Gaikwad and Harmanpreet Kaur shall be making their debut on the continental stage occasion. The girls’s staff will begin its marketing campaign on September 21 and the ultimate shall be on September 25. After this, the lads’s cricket groups will kickstart their campaigns from September 27 and the title conflict will happen on October 7. Indian males’s staff will play its first match on October 3.
India will area a contingent of 68 gamers in observe and area occasions, this shall be India’s largest illustration within the sport. Olympic and World Champion Neeraj Chopra shall be India’s greatest face on the occasion, aiming to copy his gold-winning heroics in Jakarta in 2018. Athletics competitions shall be held from September 29 to October 5, with the lads’s javelin throw last on October 4 as its greatest attraction as a consequence of India’s ‘Golden Boy’ Neeraj.
Neeraj just isn’t the one Olympic medalist from India as badminton star PV Sindhu, boxer Lovlina Borgohain, wrestler Bajrang Punia and weightlifter Mirabai Chanu are additionally taking part in on the Asian Games. The Tokyo 2020 Olympic bronze-winning males’s hockey staff can also be taking part in.
Badminton competitors shall be held from September 28 to October 7, with Sindhu main the 19-member Indian staff which can characteristic Commonwealth champions Lakshya Sen and HS Prannoy, who can also be the bronze medalist on the Badminton World Federation (BWF) World Championships held final month.
Tokyo 2020 silver medalist Chanu, a former World Champion as properly shall be making her Asiad debut in girls’s 49 kg weightlifting on September 30. Tokyo 2020 bronze medalist Bajrang Punia, the defending champion in males’s 65 kg freestyle wrestling will play on October 6.
Meanwhile, boxing on the Asian Games shall be a qualifying occasion for the Paris Olympics subsequent yr. Two-time and present world champion Nikhat Zareen will kickstart her marketing campaign in girls’s 50 kg from September 24 and Lovlina will signify India in girls’s 75 kg from September 26 onwards. Boxing competitions will finish on October 5.
The hockey competitors can even function a Paris 2024 Olympics qualifier, with Indian hockey groups aiming for gold every, which can give them a direct ticket to subsequent yr’s multi-sport extravaganza. The males’s hockey occasion will kickstart from September 24 and the Indian girls’s hockey staff will play from September 25.
Hurdler Jyothi Yarraji, steeplechase racer Avinash Sable, lengthy jumper Murali Sreeshankar, former Asian champion boxer Shiva Thapa, Indian desk tennis stars Manika Batra, Sharath Kamal and teenage chess prodigy R Praggnanandhaa are another high-profile gamers who shall be in motion.
A take a look at dates and Indian athletes for every self-discipline: (Above photographs from Olympics.com web site)The video games have been initially slated for 2022 however have been postponed as a result of COVID-19 pandemic in China final yr. India had registered 70 medals in 2018 at Jakarta, their finest tally to this point. (ANI)