New Delhi [India], September 18 (ANI): Double Olympic medalist Manu Bhaker and shot-putter Tajinderpal Singh Toor can be India’s flagbearers on the opening ceremony of the Asian Games 2026 in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, on Saturday.
Team India confirmed the announcement by way of its official account on X, writing, ‘Introducing our flag bearers for the Opening Ceremony of the Asian Games 2026 – @realmanubhaker and @Tajinder_Singh3. Let’s #Cheer4Bharat as #TeamIndia readies to tackle the sector.’
Bhaker, who received two bronze medals on the Paris 2024 Olympics, will compete within the girls’s 10m air pistol, girls’s 25m pistol, and 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team. She made historical past in Paris by turning into the primary athlete from unbiased India to win two medals in a single version of the Olympic Games.
Toor, in the meantime, will intention to safe his third consecutive Asian Games gold medal in males’s shot put. He received gold on the 2018 Jakarta Games and the 2023 Hangzhou version, the place he recorded a throw of 20.36 metres.
The twentieth version of the Asian Games will run from September 19 to October 4, with greater than 500 Indian athletes set to compete throughout 37 sports activities.
India’s chef de mission Sahdev Yadav had earlier confirmed Bhaker’s appointment. The Athletics Federation of India subsequently confirmed Toor because the second flagbearer.
Athletes from 45 international locations and areas are competing throughout 43 sports activities and 469 medal occasions on this version of the Asian Games. Japan will host the continental multi-sport occasion for the third time, having beforehand staged it in Tokyo in 1958 and Hiroshima in 1994.
India completed fourth within the Hangzhou medal standings with 107 medals, together with 28 gold, 38 silver and 41 bronze, and can be aiming to keep up that momentum in Japan.
The Indian contingent will characteristic 5 particular person Olympic medallists regardless of the withdrawal of defending javelin throw champion Neeraj Chopra attributable to an ankle harm. PV Sindhu will spearhead the badminton marketing campaign, whereas Mirabai Chanu leads the weightlifting contingent.
Shooting will characteristic Manu Bhaker, Lovlina Borgohain will compete in boxing, and Aman Sehrawat will signify India in wrestling.
India’s boxers will arrive after a record-breaking Commonwealth Games marketing campaign, the place they secured 10 medals, together with seven gold.
Athletics is predicted to be a significant a part of India’s marketing campaign, with greater than 70 monitor and discipline athletes set to compete. Gulveer Singh, Tejaswin Shankar and Olympian Sarvesh Kushare are among the many names to look at, whereas Tajinderpal Singh Toor will intention to increase his dominance within the shot put after successful the title on the earlier two editions.
India can even search to defend its males’s and girls’s titles in cricket and kabaddi, together with the boys’s hockey crown.
In males’s cricket, Shreyas Iyer will lead the title defence within the T20 competitors, with teenage batter Vaibhav Sooryavanshi additionally included within the squad. The girls’s group, additionally defending champions, can be led by T20 captain Harmanpreet Kaur.
Hockey will carry added significance, with the boys’s and girls’s tournaments serving as qualification occasions for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. The winners of each competitions will safe direct Olympic qualification.
India can even have alternatives to earn LA 2028 quota locations in archery, crusing, squash, browsing and tennis. (ANI)