HANGZHOU: India’s men’s teams won chaotic kabaddi and washed-out cricket finals, the South Korean men’s football team earned exemptions from military service, and China achieved a record gold haul at the Hangzhou Asian Games on Saturday.

The curtain comes down on the biggest Asian Games in history, boasting 12,000 athletes, on Sunday after two weeks of competition across 40 sports.

Saturday was the most action-packed of the fortnight, with gold medals up for grabs in 24 sports including football, cricket, badminton, kabaddi, hockey and breakdancing.

India have surpassed all expectations by breaching the century mark of medals for the first time at an Asian Games.

It bodes well for the Paris Olympics, which are less than 10 months away.

In early action on a grey and soggy day in Hangzhou, India swept up two golds in archery and another in women’s kabaddi.

But what should have been a day of celebration came with a large dollop of controversy.

The men’s kabaddi final against Iran descended into chaos and was delayed for over an hour, before India finally sealed the title.

Kabaddi is a tag-meets-rugby contact team sport rooted in Indian mythology and said to date back 5,000 years.

A captivating final was locked at 28-28 with just over a minute left when India went on a crucial “raid” for points, with both teams claiming they should get the decision.

That sparked a prolonged video review, then a standoff and the suspension of the final, as numerous officials checked the footage and attempted to make a ruling.

The action in what was an eagerly anticipated showdown was put on hold as both teams at different points appeared to refuse to play and argued their case.

Order was eventually restored with the score at 31-29 in India’s favour.

Iran reluctantly carried on but they were deflated and quickly slumped to a 33-29 defeat, sparking wild Indian celebrations.

Iran’s coach Gholamreza Mazandarani pointed the finger at the officials and also accused the Indian team of putting pressure on the referees.

“This is very bad, very bad for kabaddi,” he said of the fractious scenes.

Earlier on Saturday the Indian women’s kabaddi team beat Taiwan 26-25 for gold, without so much drama which enabled India to hit their 100 medal target for the Asian Games.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called India’s medal tally a “momentous achievement”, writing on social media platform X: “The people of India are thrilled that we have reached a remarkable milestone of 100 medals.”

WASHED-OUT CRICKET FINAL

India also took gold in the men’s cricket as the rain-hit T20 final against Afghanistan was decided by the superpower’s superior global ranking.

Afghanistan, ranked 10th in the ICC’s T20 rankings versus world number one India, were left with silver and powerless to do anything about it after rain halted the match when they were 112 for five after 18.2 overs of the first innings.

With India unable to bat a minimum required five overs, play was abandoned soon after 5 p.m. local time (0900 GMT), leaving Ruturaj Gaikwad’s team to celebrate victory by default.

Deciding results based purely on teams’ global rankings is almost unheard of in cricket, let alone for finals in major tournaments.

India reached the end of the day with 107 medals in total, 28 of those gold.

But they will still finish a long way behind China in the overall medals table when the Games wrap up on Sunday.

The hosts are well ahead of the rest with 382 medals in total, 200 of them gold.

China passed its previous record of 199 golds won when it last hosted the Games in Guangzhou in 2010. That was thanks to a flurry of golds, including in archery, artistic swimming, badminton, canoe slalom, chess, hockey and volleyball.

The 200th record-breaking gold was won by 29-year-old Xiangqi (Chinese chess) player Zheng Weitong, after a 2-0 victory over his compatriot Zhao Xinxin.

Another came from Zhang Ziyang, 21, who won the men’s 10 km marathon swimming race by just four tenths of a second after a nearly two-hour battle with team mate Lan Tianchen, 18, went down to the last stroke.

Last week he came sixth in the men’s 400 metres freestyle, and won a silver medal in the 4x200 metres freestyle relay.

“I performed average in the swimming pool, so I can say that this medal today is one of the biggest surprises of the Asian Games for me,” Zhang said.

SOUTH KOREA RETAIN FOOTBALL CROWN

In the men’s football final, Paris St Germain star Lee Kang-in helped South Korea win Games gold for the third time in a row — and earn a military exemption.

South Korea retained their crown after recovering from going a goal down after only two minutes to beat Japan 2-1.

Cho Young-wook scored the winning goal in the second half in a competition featuring under-24 squads plus three overage players.

Nearly every able-bodied South Korean male is required to perform at least 18 months of service, but the government rewards Asian Games gold medals and Olympic medals of any colour with an exemption.

Uzbekistan beat Hong Kong 4-0 to win the bronze medal.

The first medals in Asian Games history were at stake in breakdancing, ahead of making another landmark debut at next year’s Paris Games.

Japanese “b-boy” Shigeyuki Nakarai, 21, and Chinese “b-girl” Liu Qingyi, 17, ruled the dancefloor at the “breaking” venue to win golds on the event’s debut.

“I feel so happy, I really enjoyed the first battle until the last,” said Nakarai after his win. “The level is so high. Today’s tournament was at the highest level in the world, so it wasn’t easy for me to win this tournament.”

Badminton world number one An Se-young beat China’s Chen Yufei over three gruelling games to win gold and add another title to her stunning breakout year. The South Korean won the final 21-18, 17-21, 21-8.

Published in Dawn, October 8th, 2023