Aichi-Nagoya [Japan], October 4 (ANI): The Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games 2026 got here to a vibrant shut in Japan, marking the top of a memorable twentieth version of Asia’s premier continental multi-sport occasion in Aichi-Nagoya on Sunday.
The ceremony showcased the wealthy cultural heritage of Japan by way of a vibrant mixture of conventional dance, music and up to date performances. Athletes from totally different nations gathered collectively, waving their nationwide flags, proudly displaying their medals and bidding farewell to the Games, as per Olympics.com.
Trap shooter Neeru Dhanda carried the Indian tricolour on the closing ceremony of the Asian Games 2026 on the Nagoya City Mizuho Park Athletic Stadium on Sunday.
Dhanda earned the honour after a outstanding marketing campaign on the Aichi-Nagoya Games, the place she received two gold medals and a silver. The 27-year-old was amongst 4 Indian athletes to complete the Games with three medals, alongside archer Kumkum Mohod, distance runner Gulveer Singh and quarter-miler Vithya Ramraj.
Dhanda additionally scripted historical past by turning into the primary Indian lady to win a person Asian Games gold in lure taking pictures. She then teamed up with Aashima Ahlawat and Manisha Keer to safe silver within the girls’s crew occasion.
She accomplished her medal haul by partnering Kynan Chenai to win gold within the blended crew lure occasion. Indian shooters completed the Games with 15 medals – three gold, eight silver and 4 bronze.
Speaking about her stint on the Asian Games, Neeru shared, “This has been a truly special experience because this was my very first Asian Games. It was the first gold won by India in women’s trap ever, and the first gold medal in trap since 1978. To go back from my very first Asian Games with three medals, two of them gold and one silver, all with records, is truly special. I could not have asked for anything more,” as quoted by Olympics.com.
At the closing ceremony, Dhanda led the Parade of Nations with the Indian flag as the remainder of the Indian contingent entered the stadium alongside athletes from throughout the continent.
Volunteers danced alongside the athletes as they made their ultimate look at Aichi-Nagoya 2026. The closing ceremony was held below the theme ‘One Asia’, with athletes gathering across the central stage as parkour performances and laser shows shaped a part of the programme.
The handover ceremony featured the historic torch and flag from the inaugural Asian Games, held in New Delhi in 1951. The symbols have been paraded into the stadium earlier than being offered to the Qatari delegation.
The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) flag was additionally handed over to Qatar, with Olympic champion and three-time world excessive leap champion Mutaz Barshim receiving it as Doha prepares to host the Asian Games in 2030.
India signed off from the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya with a haul of 85 medals, with gold-medal triumphs in cricket, kabaddi and hockey offering among the defining moments of a marketing campaign that additionally featured record-breaking performances, maiden podium finishes and historic particular person achievements.
India completed fourth within the total medal standings with 21 gold, 27 silver and 37 bronze medals. China dominated the Games with 341 medals, together with 169 gold, adopted by hosts Japan with 269 medals, together with 83 gold. South Korea completed third with 150 medals, together with 39 gold.
India’s 85-medal haul fell in need of its file 106-medal tally, together with 28 golds, on the 2023 Hangzhou Games. However, the marketing campaign was marked by a number of landmark achievements throughout disciplines.
The greatest success got here within the three crew sports activities through which India competed in each the lads’s and girls’s occasions – cricket, kabaddi and hockey – with the nation finishing a clear sweep of gold medals throughout all six competitions.
In cricket, India accomplished a golden double after the ladies’s crew received the title earlier than the lads’s aspect defeated arch-rivals Pakistan by 19 runs within the ultimate.
The males’s crew, powered by contributions from Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma and Axar Patel, added the gold to the ladies’s crew’s emphatic 147-run victory over Sri Lanka within the girls’s ultimate.
Kabaddi produced one other clear sweep. India’s girls defeated Iran 37-34 in a intently fought ultimate to efficiently defend their title, whereas the lads’s crew got here from behind to beat Iran 40-34.
The males’s gold was India’s ninth in 10 editions since kabaddi grew to become a males’s crew sport on the Asian Games in 1990. The solely exception got here in 2018, when India received bronze. The girls’s crew, in the meantime, continued its dominance because the sport’s introduction to the ladies’s programme in 2010.
Hockey accomplished India’s clear sweep within the crew sports activities. The girls’s crew ended a 44-year look forward to an Asian Games medal by defeating China 1-0 within the ultimate, with Lalremsiami scoring the decisive objective within the tenth minute.
The victory was India’s first girls’s hockey gold on the Asian Games since 1982. The males’s crew adopted with a 5-1 win over Malaysia within the ultimate, efficiently defending its Asian Games title. It was India’s fifth males’s hockey gold after victories in 1966, 1998, 2014 and 2022, and the primary time the Indian males’s and girls’s hockey groups received gold on the similar version.
With these wins, India’s males’s and girls’s hockey groups certified for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, reserving their seats efficiently. (ANI)