New Delhi [India], September 19 (ANI): Olympic champion javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra prolonged his finest needs to the Indian contingent collaborating within the Asian Games 2026, saying he was assured that the athletes would make the nation proud.
Taking to social media platform X, Chopra wrote, ‘All my finest needs to the #TeamIndia on the Asian Games 2026! I’m certain they are going to all make us proud.’
https://x.com/Neeraj_chopra1/status/2101234043270689261?s=20
The Asian Games 2026 are scheduled to be held in Nagoya and Aichi, Japan, from September 19 to October 4. India will compete throughout a number of disciplines, with athletes aiming to construct on the nation’s performances in earlier editions of the continental occasion.
Chopra, who received gold on the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and silver on the Paris 2024 Olympics in males’s javelin throw, has been certainly one of India’s main sporting figures lately. However, Chopra will miss the 2026 Asian Games after he suffered an ankle ligament damage throughout a coaching session, which additionally dominated him out for the remainder of the season.
Meanwhile, Kabaddi star Pawan Sehrawat and Olympic medallist Manu Bhaker led the Indian contingent on the opening ceremony of the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya on Saturday.
The ceremony on the Paloma Mizuho Stadium marked the formal opening of the twentieth Asian Games, with India represented by a 503-athlete contingent throughout 36 sports activities. Sehrawat, a member of India’s gold-medal-winning males’s kabaddi workforce on the earlier Asian Games, now has the excellence of carrying the Tricolour on the opening ceremony alongside Bhaker. Bhaker, a double Olympic medallist, is amongst India’s outstanding athletes on the Games.Â
Bhaker, who received two bronze medals on the Paris 2024 Olympics, will compete within the ladies’s 10m air pistol, ladies’s 25m pistol, and 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team. She made historical past in Paris by changing into the primary athlete from impartial India to win two medals in a single version of the Olympic Games.
In a video message forward of the ceremony, Bhaker stated that realising that she was chosen as one of many flag-bearers left her with a ‘heartwarming’ feeling, and all she might expertise was flashbacks of her early days within the sport and reflections on how far she has come.
‘Honestly, once I came upon yesterday, I had all these flashback recollections of my earlier days. And, you realize, once I began, I by no means thought that this was the place I might attain someday in my sport. So, it’s undoubtedly a really heartwarming feeling. I really feel actually proud, actually honoured, and actually, actually completely happy to be chosen because the flag bearer for my nation. I simply wish to say thanks to God and thanks to everybody for all of the love and assist,’ she stated.
India shall be aiming to outdo the 2022 version, the place they secured a record-breaking 107 medals, together with 28 gold, 38 silver and 41 bronze. Â (ANI)