Track And Yield

India’s athletics performance at the Asian Games—its best ever outside the country—proves there is potential for bigger achievements.

- Anirudh MadhavanJakarta

THE MOUNTAIN of a man took his stance, raised his arms and shifted the iron ball from his right hand to his left. His feet firm, he held the shot close to his powdered neck. This was his fifth attempt. Though he had been leading the field with a 19.96m throw, he had always wanted to go beyond 20m. And so, with a mighty pirouette, Tejinder Pal Singh Toor, 23, sent the ball sailing and, from a spectator’s view, it landed well beyond the 20m mark. Tejinder knew it, too. He jumped in the air, slapped his thigh and, when the official measurement was shown, let out a wild scream. Bahadur Singh Chouhan, the chief national coach who had won gold in the event in 1982, looked on from the stands, a smile brightening his bearded face. It was a massive 20.75m and an Asian Games record.

With the throw, India had the first of its 19 athletics medals at the 2018 Asian Games; its best track and field per formance outside India. Only when the Games were held at home (1951 and 1982) did India get more medals. Notably, however, there were more golds now than in 1982 (five then; seven now) and the field was much bigger than in 1951.

“Overall, it was a good performance,” Radhakrishnan Nair, deputy chief coach of the athletics team, told THE WEEK. “But, I am not fully satisfied. We lost some medals by a narrow margin. For example, the women’s 400m and 400m hurdles.” Nirmala Sheoran and Anu Raghavan had both finished fourth in their races. “We were expecting 20 to 25 medals. We got 20, but we returned one,” he said in jest, referring to G. Lakshmanan being disqualified for lane infringement, after winning the bronze in the men’s 10,000m.