India's got talent: From Asian Games win to hosting Cricket World Cup

From bagging 107 medals at the Asian Games to hosting hockey and cricket World Cups, 2023 saw India making rapid strides toward becoming a sporting behemoth

Kishore Jena took a deep breath, arched back, and sprinted to his mark to hurl the javelin with all his might. As the javelin soared past Hangzhou’s evening sky to strike the ground at 86.77 metres, there were collective gasps of disbelief from spectators.

Jena’s monstrous throw catapulted him into the lead in the javelin final of the 2023 Asian Games, ahead of his compatriot and fan favourite Neeraj Chopra.

It would be short-lived though as Chopra would register 

88.88m in his next attempt to lead a rare gold-silver finish for India in men’s javelin at the showpiece sporting extravaganza in China.

For Jena, the throw meant that he would qualify for next year’s Olympic Games in Paris. Inspired, he would go a step further and hurl an impressive 87.54m in his fourth attempt – his personal best. 

 The stupendous wins in the javelin were a watershed moment for Indian sports in 2023, the year the country took an emphatic step towards becoming a sporting behemoth.

Standing one step below Chopra on the podium in Hangzhou, it capped Jena’s stellar rise from sheer obscurity.

Hailing from Kothasahi village near Puri in Odisha, Jena began as a volleyball player before switching to javelin in 2019.

The path to Olympic qualification and a silver medal at the Asian Games has been arduous. Jena, the youngest of seven siblings, was forced to sell his ancestral land five years ago to make ends meet.

Looking back, Jena, 28, said the 86.77m throw at the javelin final was the highlight of the Asiad performance. “That throw helped me qualify for the Olympics. So, it was special. At the back of my mind, I was only thinking about Olympic qualification,” Jena told Business Standard in a telephonic interaction.

He believes the key to India’s sporting success lies in spotting talent early and harnessing it through government-sponsored initiatives such as TOPS (Target Olympic Podium Scheme).

“You can get award-winning sportspersons if sports is made an important part of curriculums across schools in the country,” Jena, a Reliance Foundation athlete, explained.

Amid the euphoria over Jena and Chopra, Annu Rani scripted history by becoming the first Indian woman to win javelin gold at the Asiad.

 

Record haul at Asiad

Chopra, Jena, and Rani were part of the historic haul of 107 medals that India bagged at the Hangzhou Asian Games in October this year.

In the previous edition of the Asian Games held in Jakarta, India had won 70 medals.

With its best-ever tally, India finished at a creditable fourth position in the points table behind Asian powerhouses such as China, Japan and South Korea.

Apart from javelin, India ransacked medals from traditionally strong domains like hockey, kabaddi and shooting.

In badminton, the rampaging duo of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty bagged a historic first Asian Games gold in men’s doubles.

The compound archers orchestrated their best show ever at the showpiece Asian event, bagging five gold medals.

The clean sweep at the Asiad notwithstanding, Olympic participation remains a distant dream for these compound archers. That is because compound archery is not an Olympic sport.

“It is a dream of every athlete to represent their country at the Olympics. I guess we will have to wait a little longer,” Abhishek Verma, India’s ace compound archer, said wistfully.

The most heart-wrenching sight of the Asian Games was how Manipur’s star wushu player Roshibina Devi broke down after winning silver.

Her lament was directed towards the recurring incidents of ethnic violence in her state and why fellow wushu players from Arunachal Pradesh were denied a chance to compete in Hangzhou because of China’s stapled visa policy.

The other win for India was the bittersweet bronze in table tennis (TT) orchestrated by childhood friends Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee. The unheralded pair from Naihati in West Bengal did the unthinkable: defeat China, the TT powerhouse, in the Asian Games quarterfinals.

If you thought the Asian Games haul was historic, the para-athletes did even better, bagging 111 medals – 29 gold, 31 silver, and 51 bronze.

The women boxers also gave India plenty to cheer after Nikhat Zareen, Nithu Ghanghas, Saweety Boora and Lovlina Borgohain bagged gold medals at the Women’s World Boxing Championships.

In chess, R Praggnanandhaa exhibited extraordinary skill and gumption to become the youngest player to advance to the FIDE World Cup final. 

Later in the year, R. Vaishali joined her sibling Praggnanandhaa to become the world’s first-ever brother-sister Grandmaster duo.

Another reassuring sign came in hockey, where India’s men's team climbed to the third spot in the International Hockey Federation rankings, which came on the back of their undefeated march in the Asian Champions Trophy in Chennai.

A combination of factors is instrumental in India’s euphoric rise as an all-round sporting nation, hitherto seen as a cricketing superpower.

These include an incremental increase in government funding under TOPS, the Khelo India programme, numerous exposure trips abroad and a spate of private sponsorships. The budgetary allocation for the Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports has also swelled from Rs 450 crore in 2004 to over Rs 3,400 crore this year.

The medals and accolades have made the government focus on ambitious plans in Olympic sports.

Year 2023 saw India hosting the 141st session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Mumbai. On the sidelines, IOC president Thomas Bach acknowledged India as a “rising sports power” and noted the country’s “great interest” in hosting the 2036 Olympic Games.

The country also hosted the Men’s Hockey World Cup and the ODI Men’s Cricket World Cup this year. Bagging the hosting rights for such marquee events was the country’s means to quietly advance its soft power.

 Wrestlers’ protest

On a note that cast a shadow on an otherwise dazzling year in sport, 2023 witnessed the anguish of the wrestling community. Angered and frustrated at the lack of action against Bharatiya Janata Party MP Brijbhushan Sharan Singh, the former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief, over his alleged misconduct with female wrestlers, Olympic-winning medallists like Bajrang Punia, Vinesh Phogat, Sakshi Malik and Yogeshwar Dutt staged protests from Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. 

Later in the year, Malik announced her retirement after Sanjay Singh, a close aide of Sharan Singh, was elected WFI president. World Championship medallist Vinesh Phogat announced she was returning the Arjuna Award and the Khel Ratna, saying “these awards have no meaning in my life now.” As the year drew to a close, the sports ministry suspended WFI's newly elected executive committee and the Indian Olympic Association took over the federation’s operations. 

Meanwhile, India were a tour-de-force in the Men's Cricket World Cup, winning 10 games on the bounce before going down to Australia in the final in Ahmedabad. Despite stellar performances from Mohammed Shami and Virat Kohli, India’s wait for that elusive ICC crown continues. Their last ICC title came in 2013.

There was no heartbreak for the women’s cricket team though. They overpowered England by 347 runs in the one-off Test in Mumbai and followed it up by registering their first-ever win in the traditional format against Australia.

The year 2023 stands as a testament to India’s spectacular growth as a sporting superpower. It was a year when the needle finally moved.

At the closing ceremony of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, a Chinese girl belted out a song, which loosely translated to: “Four years from now, we (China) are going to beat you at everything. Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

Two decades later, it is India’s turn to remind the world of its sporting prowess.