Sawan Barwal won India's first Asian Games marathon medal since 1982, clocking 2:11:37 and breaking the national record. Indian shooters dominated with multiple medals including Suruchi Phogat and Kamaljeet's gold in 10m air pistol mixed team, setting an Asian Games record.
Sawan Barwal breaks 44-year jinx with marathon silver; India shines across shooting, archery
Forty-four years of waiting, ended in one race
Mark
So Sawan Barwal broke a 44-year drought with that marathon silver. What made this particular moment so significant for Indian distance running?
Mimi
It wasn't just that he won silver. He ran 2:11:37, which is his own national record. The last time India had medaled in a marathon at the Asian Games was 1982—that's a generation of runners who never saw their country on the podium in this event.
Luke
But let's be clear about what we're measuring. He finished second to Japan's Yamashita, who ran 2:10:49. That's a 72-second gap. Is this a breakthrough in Indian distance running, or is it one strong performance?
Mimi
It's the breakthrough because it ends the pattern. For 44 years, no Indian marathoner had made the podium here. That's not just statistics—that's what the absence feels like.
Mark
And the shooting medals—there seemed to be quite a few of those on the same day.
Mimi
Multiple events. Suruchi and Kamaljeet won gold in the mixed team air pistol and set an Asian Games record doing it. Elavenil Valarivan got silver in the individual rifle event, though she'd been leading until the final stages. The women's team in 50-meter rifle took silver as well.
Luke
How many shooters are we talking about total who medaled that day?
Mimi
At least eight medal-winning shooters returned to Delhi together. But the point is the breadth—it wasn't one shooter carrying the load. It was multiple events, multiple disciplines within shooting.
Mark
Elavenil said she was disappointed about not winning gold. Did she lose to someone she could have beaten?
Mimi
She lost to Ban Hyojin of South Korea, who's the reigning Olympic and world champion. So no—she lost to the best in the world. That's actually a strong silver.
Luke
But the narrative around her was that she led until the final stages. That's the part that stings, isn't it? Not the loss itself, but how close she came.
Mimi
Exactly. She said there's disappointment, but she also said she thinks there's more to come. It's not a career-ending moment; it's a learning one.
Mark
What about the archer, Dhiraj Bommadevara? He seemed to arrive with real form.
Mimi
He won the World Cup Final in Saltillo just the week before—first Indian male recurve archer to do that. He also had a World Cup gold in Antalya and won the 2025 Asian Archery Championships. He came to Nagoya as a proven performer.
Luke
So the archery team was targeting nine medals from Hangzhou as a baseline. Do we know if they hit that?
Mimi
The reporting says they were aiming to better the nine-medal haul. Whether they did, we'd need to see the final medal count.
Mark
There was also this story about Roshibina Devi in wushu—she almost didn't make the team.
Mimi
She lost in the trials and had accepted she wouldn't be going. Less than two weeks before the Games, she got a last-minute call. She won silver and now has three consecutive Asian Games medals.
Luke
That's a remarkable personal story, but it also raises a question: why was she nearly left out if she's a two-time medalist? Was the selection process that tight, or was there something else?
Mimi
The reporting doesn't explain the reasoning behind the trials or the late inclusion. We know it happened, but not why.
O Pulso
- Sawan Barwal won silver in the marathon with a time of 2:11:37, breaking his own national record
- India's last Asian Games marathon medal came in 1982 when Hosur Kukkappa Seetharan won bronze
- Suruchi Phogat and Kamaljeet won gold in the 10m air pistol mixed team, setting an Asian Games record of 484.6
- Elavenil Valarivan won silver in the women's 10m air rifle, losing to South Korea's Ban Hyojin
- Naorem Roshibina Devi won silver in wushu after a last-minute inclusion to the team
Sawan Barwal won India's first Asian Games marathon medal since 1982, clocking 2:11:37 and breaking the national record. Indian shooters dominated with multiple medals including Suruchi Phogat and Kamaljeet's gold in 10m air pistol mixed team, setting an Asian Games record.
India achieved multiple historic medals at the 2026 Asian Games in Nagoya, including Sawan Barwal's marathon silver breaking a 44-year jinx and shooting gold medals across multiple events.
Sawan Barwal crossed the finish line of the marathon at the 2026 Asian Games in Nagoya on Saturday, September 26, and in doing so ended a drought that had lasted forty-four years. The 28-year-old soldier from Himachal Pradesh ran 42.195 kilometers in two hours, eleven minutes, and thirty-seven seconds—a time that shattered his own national record and earned him silver behind Japan's Ichitaka Yamashita, who finished in 2:10:49. China's Peiyou Feng took bronze with 2:12:13. For India, the medal marked the first in the marathon at an Asian Games since 1982, when Hosur Kukkappa Seetharan won bronze in New Delhi. The gap between then and now—more than four decades—underscored how elusive the podium had been for Indian distance runners on this stage.
Barwal's breakthrough was part of a broader surge in Indian performance across multiple disciplines that day. In shooting, the sport that has become one of India's most reliable medal sources, the wins kept coming. Suruchi Phogat and Kamaljeet combined to claim gold in the 10-meter air pistol mixed team event, posting a score of 484.6 and setting a new Asian Games record in the process. This was the medal India's shooting contingent had been chasing—the first gold from the Aichi General Shooting Range after days of competition.
The shooting medals extended beyond the mixed team event. In the women's 50-meter rifle 3 positions team competition, the trio of Tilottama Sen, Vidarsa Vinod, and Ashi Chouksey secured silver with an aggregate score of 1763. China took gold with a games record of 1773, while Kazakhstan finished third with 1754. Both Tilottama and Ashi advanced to the individual final, with Ashi scoring 395-25x and Tilottama posting 395-23x.
Elite rifle shooter Elavenil Valarivan had come close to gold in the women's 10-meter air rifle individual event but ultimately settled for silver after leading through much of the competition. She had been beaten by South Korea's Ban Hyojin, the reigning Olympic and world champion. Speaking after returning to Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport late that night, where she and seven other medal-winning shooters received a warm welcome, Elavenil acknowledged the sting of narrowly missing the top step. "I feel very grateful that I got to represent my country and was able to bring a lot of laurels for the country," she told reporters. "Definitely, there is some disappointment that I could not win the gold, but nevertheless, this is just the beginning and I think there is more to come."
India's archery team arrived in Nagoya with momentum of its own. Dhiraj Bommadevara, the 25-year-old recurve archer, had just won the World Cup Final in Saltillo the week before—a first for an Indian male in his discipline. He came to Japan on the back of a maiden World Cup gold in Antalya and the 2025 Asian Archery Championships title. The team was aiming to surpass the nine medals won at the previous Games in Hangzhou.
Other Indian athletes found the path less smooth. Shuttler Lakshya Sen, ranked 14th in the world, exited in the second round after losing to Singapore's Loh Kean Yew, the 2021 world champion ranked 13th. The match lasted more than an hour at the Ichinomiya City Municipal Gymnasium, with Sen falling 12-21, 21-15, 14-21. In squash, Joshana Chinappa competed in the mixed doubles semifinal against Hong Kong's Lee Ka Yi and Tang Ming Hong.
Among the stories of perseverance was that of Naorem Roshibina Devi, a two-time Asian Games medalist in wushu who had nearly missed these Games entirely. Less than two weeks before the competition began, she had lost in the trials and resigned herself to watching from home. A last-minute call to the team changed everything. She went on to win silver in wushu, securing her third consecutive Asian Games medal and completing a remarkable turnaround from the brink of exclusion.
As the medal-winning contingent returned to India over the following days, the welcomes at the airport reflected the nation's appetite for these victories. The shooters, the marathoner, the archers—they arrived home to celebrations that signaled not just the success of individual athletes but a broader momentum in Indian sport. The performances in Nagoya suggested that the medals would keep coming, and that the long waits for certain breakthroughs—like Barwal's marathon silver—might finally be giving way to a new era of consistency.
Citações Notáveis
I feel very grateful that I got to represent my country and was able to bring a lot of laurels for the country. Definitely, there is some disappointment that I could not win the gold, but nevertheless, this is just the beginning and I think there is more to come.— Elavenil Valarivan, rifle shooter
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Leia o original em The Hindu ↗