Asiad 2026: Can India better its Hangzhou medal tally in Aichi-Nagoya? | Asian Games 2026

Three years ago in Hangzhou, India crossed a barrier that had long seemed beyond reach at the Asian Games. The country returned from China with 107 medals — 28 gold, 38 silver and 41 bronze — to finish fourth and, for the first time, breach the 100-medal mark at the continental multi-sport event.

The number has since been revised to 106 after boxer Parveen Hooda was stripped of her bronze following a whereabouts violation. But the significance of Hangzhou has not changed. India had moved from 57 medals at Incheon in 2014 to 69 at Jakarta in 2018 and then made the giant leap to 107 in Hangzhou.

Now, at Aichi-Nagoya, the question is not simply whether India can repeat that performance. It is whether the country has enough depth to go beyond it.

On paper, the challenge looks formidable. India will take a 503-athlete contingent to Japan, comprising 265 men and 227 women, with athletics the largest discipline. The wider contingent has since expanded to 768 members following the addition of surfing, but the athlete strength remains significantly smaller than the 655 athletes India sent to Hangzhou.

That reduction makes the target of 107-plus medals even more demanding. India cannot rely on numbers alone. It will need a greater conversion rate from its medal contenders.

Shooting: India’s biggest opportunity for another big haul

Shooting gave India 22 medals at Hangzhou, including seven golds, and remains one of its strongest medal prospects at Aichi-Nagoya. With depth across rifle, pistol and shotgun, India has several routes to the podium.

Manu Bhaker will be central to that challenge, but her case goes beyond the two Olympic bronze medals she won at Paris 2024. At the Asian Rifle and Pistol Championships in Delhi in February, Bhaker won silver in the 25m pistol, finishing behind Vietnam’s Nguyen Thuy Trang after qualifying for the final with the second-best score. She also helped India win 10m air pistol team gold alongside Esha Singh and Suruchi Singh.

At the ISSF World Cup in Hangzhou in July, Bhaker took 25m pistol bronze, while Esha won gold. Esha had earlier claimed individual 10m air pistol gold at the Asian Championship in February, scoring 239.8 in the final, before adding 25m pistol gold in Hangzhou.

India’s men also bring medal pedigree. Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar won 10m air rifle bronze and 50m rifle 3 positions silver at Hangzhou, while Rudrankksh Patil won team gold in 10m air rifle. Anant Jeet Singh Naruka returns as a Hangzhou silver medallist in men’s skeet, with Kynan Chenai and the shotgun teams adding further possibilities.

Athletics: the biggest contingent, but a missing gold

Athletics remains India’s biggest medal-producing discipline from Hangzhou and will also have the largest contingent at Aichi-Nagoya, with 77 athletes — 34 men and 43 women — across track, field and road events. But the team begins without its biggest medal certainty: Neeraj Chopra. The defending Asian Games javelin champion, who won gold at Jakarta and Hangzhou, is out with an injury, leaving India without its clearest athletics gold prospect.

Avinash Sable returns as the defending 3,000m steeplechase champion, although an interrupted season makes his form harder to assess. Tajinderpal Singh Toor is chasing a third successive Asian Games shot put title after winning in 2018 and 2022, but his fifth-place finish at the 2026 Commonwealth Games, despite throwing 20.14m in qualifying, underlines the uncertainty.

Parul Chaudhary, a two-time Hangzhou medallist, enters the 1,500m, steeplechase and 5,000m. She was fifth and 13th respectively at Glasgow but also set a national record in the 5,000m this season.

Gulveer Singh offers perhaps the clearest route to an improved return. He won 10,000m silver and 5,000m bronze at Glasgow, becoming India’s first athlete to win two athletics medals at one Commonwealth Games. After a Hangzhou 10,000m bronze, he now enters three events.

Murali Sreeshankar, meanwhile, followed his Hangzhou long-jump silver with another silver at Glasgow after an 8.09m jump.

Matching Hangzhou’s 29 medals will require the wider team — from field events to distance running and relays — to make up for Chopra’s absence.

Archery: Jyothi has the record, Dhiraj has the momentum

Archery was one of India’s biggest success stories at Hangzhou, producing golds in both men’s and women’s compound team events, along with individual titles for Ojas Deotale and Jyothi Surekha Vennam and medals in recurve. But the 2026 squad has a very different look.

Ojas Deotale, Abhishek Verma and Aditi Swami, all individual medallists in Hangzhou, are absent. Veterans Deepika Kumari and Atanu Das also missed selection after finishing fourth in the trials.

That leaves greater responsibility on Jyothi Surekha Vennam, the only returning individual champion from India’s Hangzhou compound gold-medal group. She is appearing at her fourth Asian Games and remains the most experienced member of the women’s compound team.

In recurve, however, Dhiraj Bommadevara brings the strongest recent momentum. At the Antalya World Cup in June, he and Kumkum Mohod defeated Olympic champions South Korea 5-1 to win mixed-team gold. Bommadevara then added the individual title, taking two golds at the same stage.

The result was significant given South Korea’s dominance — it has won both Olympic mixed-team titles since the event entered the programme.

As of September 1, Bommadevara was ranked 10th in the world and had a 10-3 match record in 2026.

With several Hangzhou champions missing, another compound gold rush is less certain. But Bommadevara’s form gives India a fresh and credible medal route in recurve.

Badminton: champions, but the warning signs are there

Badminton is perhaps the clearest example of why recent performances matter as much as reputation. Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, the defending Asian Games men’s doubles champions, remain India’s biggest medal hope, but their recent results have exposed some vulnerabilities.

At the World Championships in August, they survived Malaysia’s Junaidi Arif and Roy King Yap 21-23, 21-19, 21-17 in the round of 16 before losing 21-18, 21-9 to China’s Liang Weikeng and Wang Chang in the quarter-finals. At the China Masters this week, they again needed three games to beat France’s Christo Popov and Toma Junior Popov 21-17, 22-24, 21-9 and reach the quarter-finals.

The stronger recent-form argument may come from the women’s doubles pair of Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand. They won bronze at the 2026 BWF World Championships last month, giving India a genuine medal prospect in a discipline where the pair’s confidence has been growing.

Lakshya Sen and PV Sindhu add individual possibilities, but both had disappointing campaigns at the World Championships, exiting in the round of 32 and the round of 16, respectively.

India’s badminton hopes, therefore, could rest heavily on its doubles pairs and team events, with Jolly-Gayatri providing an important new medal route alongside the defending champions Satwik-Chirag.

Boxing: Glasgow gives India something to build on

Boxing could be one of the sports where India improves on its Hangzhou return. India had four medals in Hangzhou, although Parveen Hooda’s bronze was later removed from the recognised tally.

The 2026 team arrives with considerable confidence after a standout Commonwealth Games campaign, in which Indian boxers won seven gold and three silver medals. Preeti Pawar, Sakshi Chaudhary, Priya Ghanghas and Sachin Siwach were among the gold medallists, while Lovlina Borgohain, Jadumani Singh and Narender Berwal won silver.

But Glasgow cannot simply be treated as a predictor of Asian Games success. The Asian field is deeper, and the Commonwealth draw did not offer the same level of opposition across every weight category.

Lovlina’s silver illustrates that distinction. She reached the 75kg final before losing 1-4 to Australia’s Emma-Sue Greentree. The five-boxer draw had also given her a first-round bye, meaning she faced only one genuinely demanding bout before the final. Her silver confirms her status as a major-tournament medal contender, but not necessarily as an Asian Games favourite.

Preeti Pawar offers a more encouraging signal. She won gold in Glasgow and returns in the 54kg category.

For India, therefore, the opportunity is not to replicate seven Commonwealth golds, but to carry that confidence into a significantly stronger Asian field and turn it into a larger collection of Asian Games medals.

Weightlifting: Mirabai leads the charge again

Few Indian athletes arrive in Aichi-Nagoya with a more interesting mix of recent success and unfinished business than Mirabai Chanu. She won women’s 48kg gold at the 2026 Commonwealth Games, setting Games records with an 85kg snatch and 105kg clean and jerk. It was her third consecutive Commonwealth Games gold.

Yet Chanu has never won an Asian Games medal. That makes Aichi-Nagoya a particularly significant opportunity: she enters after another major title, but still has one continental medal missing from her collection.

India also has Gyaneshwari Yadav, Seram Nirupama Devi and Harjinder Kaur, all Glasgow medallists. Gyaneshwari won silver in the 53kg category, while Harjinder took silver at 69kg.

Chanu is clearly the focal point, but the wider group gives India multiple medal possibilities. The Commonwealth results cannot simply be carried over to Asia, where the field is stronger. Still, if Chanu converts her recent form and the supporting group adds a medal or two, weightlifting could make a meaningful contribution to India’s overall tally.

Wrestling: Olympic pedigree meets a tougher test

Wrestling produced six medals for India at Hangzhou — three in the men’s events and three in the women’s — but none were gold. The 2026 team has an important upgrade in Aman Sehrawat, who returns to the Asian Games as an Olympic bronze medallist.

Sehrawat competes in the 57kg freestyle category, while Antim Panghal, a Hangzhou bronze medallist, returns at 53kg.

The difficulty is that wrestling does not offer India the same recent Commonwealth reference point as boxing or weightlifting. The sport was absent from the 2026 Glasgow programme, so the assessment has to rely more heavily on international results and championship pedigree.

That makes the target relatively simple: India does not need to dominate wrestling to improve its overall position. Turning some of the six Hangzhou medals into gold, while adding another podium or two, would already represent a significant contribution.

Sehrawat’s Olympic medal gives India one proven major-event performer, while Panghal provides continuity from Hangzhou.

Squash and table tennis: where the extra medals could come from

India’s final medal tally may be shaped as much by these sports as by its headline names. Squash, in particular, offers several routes to additional medals.

India won men’s team gold, mixed doubles gold, men’s singles silver and women’s team bronze at Hangzhou. The 2026 squad again includes Abhay Singh, Velavan Senthilkumar, Anahat Singh, Joshana Chinappa and Tanvi Khanna, giving India options across singles, doubles and team events.

That depth matters. India does not necessarily need one player to dominate multiple events; a medal in any one of the formats can add to the overall tally.

Table tennis provides a similar opportunity. Sreeja Akula, Yashaswini Ghorpade, Manush Shah, Manav Thakkar and Harmeet Desai give India established international players across singles, doubles and team competitions.

Neither sport carries the same certainty as India’s strongest gold prospects. But that is precisely why they matter. One unexpected silver or bronze from squash or table tennis could ultimately be the difference between finishing above or below Hangzhou’s 107-medal mark.

The gold medals India cannot afford to lose

Some parts of India’s medal calculation are more straightforward because the country returns as defending champion.

The men’s hockey, men’s kabaddi, women’s kabaddi, men’s cricket and women’s cricket teams all arrive with gold-medal credentials from Hangzhou. The two cricket teams won the inaugural Asian Games T20 titles in 2023, while the kabaddi teams and men’s hockey team also topped the podium.

That gives India several potentially valuable gold-medal opportunities before the individual events are even considered.

The men’s hockey team will defend its title, while the women’s team — bronze medallists at Hangzhou — has an opportunity to improve rather than defend a championship.

Cricket is particularly significant because both teams return with high-profile players. Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Deepti Sharma and Richa Ghosh headline the women’s side, while Shreyas Iyer leads the men’s team.

But these should not be treated as guaranteed medals. Team sports are knockout competitions, and one poor match can turn a projected gold into no medal at all. India therefore needs to convert these defending-champion opportunities into actual medals if it wants a strong base for a record tally.

The bigger question: Can India replace what it has lost?

That may ultimately decide whether India can move beyond 107 medals.

The country has lost Neeraj Chopra, while several of the archers who delivered medals at Hangzhou are also absent. Other established names have fallen out of the 2026 squad as well.

But India has also gained athletes whose credentials have grown considerably since 2023.

Manu Bhaker is now a double Olympic medallist. Aman Sehrawat is an Olympic medallist. Mirabai Chanu arrives after another Commonwealth gold. Gulveer Singh is now a double Commonwealth medallist. Dhiraj Bommadevara has won major World Cup gold, while Esha Singh has won individual gold at both the Asian Championship and the Hangzhou World Cup.

That is the reason the 107-medal target remains realistic. It is not because India has simply retained its Hangzhou champions. It is because some of the athletes taking their place are entering the Asian Games with stronger credentials than they had three years ago.