Asian Games: India eye Hangzhou high

A glitzy affair was expected and China delivered exactly that at the Opening Ceremony of the 19th Asian Games on SaturdayA perfect amalgamation of ancient culture saw Asiarsquos largest nation highlight glimpses of their 10th century Song Dynasty through images and videos sprayed by lasers across a massive digitallycreated screen encompassing the entire Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre StadiumTeam India led by flagbearers hockey captain Harmanpreet Singh and Olympic medalwinning boxer Lovlina Borgohain stood out with their goldencoloured traditional attire almost reminding the 665 athletes of their gold medal hunt across the next fortnightFlagbearers Lovlina Borgohain and Harmanpreet Singh lead the Indian contingent during the Opening Ceremony on SaturdayA confident Borgohain had no hesitation in being vocal about this ldquoIt feels great to be Indiarsquos flagbearer but with this honour comes responsibility and we will try our best to win as many gold medals as we can I want the entire nation to pray for us We are passionate about this and want to excelrdquo she said on SaturdayIndia earned its bestever Asian Games medal tally at Jakarta in 2018 with 70 medals 16 gold 23 silver and 31 bronze and many believe the figure this time will not only surpass the last one but in fact touch what seems to be the magical century mark That cricket has been included at this edition and India have a strong menrsquos and womenrsquos team should help this cause Athletics Federation of India chief Adille Sumariwalla recently went on record to say that 100 medals is possible while Indian Olympic Association president PT Usha and sports minister Anurag Thakur announced that the contingent will return from Hangzhou with their bestever medal haul Also Read Asian Games Saba Karim optimistic of big performance from JaiswalThe trends however arenrsquot as convincing Since the turn of the millennium India have had a steady rise in the number of medals won at the Asian Games Busan 2002 saw them pick 36 medals followed by 53 at Doha 2006 and 65 at Guangzhou 2010 with Incheon 2014 being the only aberration as the number of medals reduced to 57 before normalcy returned in Jakarta Interestingly never in Indiarsquos Asian Games history which dates back to 1951 have they had a jump of 30 medals at a subsequent Games India fell one short of this figure when they added 29 medals at New Delhi in 1982 57 medals to the 28 they won at the previous edition in Bangkok 1978This is not to say however that history cannot be made at Hangzhou And the fact that this is Indiarsquos biggestever contingent at an Asiad also increases their chances of achieving it After all this is a Games of many firsts with the opening ceremony showing the world that a digital torchbearer can also be part of the tilldate purely human experience of lighting of the cauldron