The headline number of day four is 22 – that’s what India’s medal tally at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games stands at right now. But ESPN India picks out 7 unique numbers that truly helped define the day that India had on Wednesday, September 27.
77
An Indian athlete at the Asian Games who pre-dates independent India. Whoddathunk? Bharati Dey, 77, was born in March 1946 and is leading India’s women’s bridge team (currently in action) at Hangzhou. What’s even funkier? Her youngest teammate, Vidhya Patel, is 22. From the British Empire to the new millennium, this team has seen it all.
4, 16, 17
India won bronze in the men’s skeet team event on Wednesday morning, but a lot of it was due to Anant Jeet Singh Naruka’s performance. Just how much? Naruka finished 4th in the individual qualifying. His compatriots Gurjoat Singh Khangura and Angad Vir Singh Bajwa finished 16th and 17th respectively.
469.6
How do you win India’s first individual gold of the Hangzhou Games? By obliterating the world record (by 2.6 points) en route to winning by a margin of 7.6 (in a sport where the highest points possible per shot is 10.9). Sift Kaur Samra, Asian Games champion and now, world record holder. If the 10m air rifle team world record was impressive, this was a whole new level. MBBS’ loss is world shooting’s gain.
60 at 60
Perfection doesn’t have an age limit. So proved Abdullah Al Rashidi as he hit 60/60 to win men’s skeet gold, beating out competition from unheralded Naruka of India who hit 58/60.
5-4-5
In the fifth series of her final in the 25m pistol, Esha Singh hit a 1 (out of 5), and in the next barely improved with a 3. At that point, it looked like a medal was a long shot, and elimination was more likely, but then she pulled out an absolutely cracking set of series: hitting 5, 4, 5 back-to-back.
It was the kind of clutch shooting that wins you a medal, and the silver around her neck at the end of it all spoke volumes.
8.9
In the penultimate round of shooting in the final of the 25m 3 Positions rifle, Ashi Chouksey needed just a 9.4 to enter the final round and make it a remarkable 1-2 to India. Coming off a series of 10.5 and 10.2, silver was in the bag… till she shot an 8.9. That was that, and silver changed in an instant to bronze.
Oh, what could have been.
3
The bronze, though, was still Chouksey’s third medal (more than any other Indian athlete at Hangzhou so far).
Honourable mention: a record that’s mathematically impossible to better: Nepal’s win over Mongolia in the men’s cricket group stage match saw something quite extraordinary. Dipendra Singh Airee brought up his half-century in 9 balls: 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 2, 6, 6. What an incredible series, quality of opposition notwithstanding. They also won by 273 runs, a record in all T20Is ever, anywhere.
