Bibhash Lodh, BS News Agency: The Aichi Nagoya Asian Games saw more female athletes winning medals. Women cricketers brought India its first gold at the 2026 Japan Asian Games. Suruchi-Kamaljit won gold in the mixed team event of shooting on Friday. On Saturday, the third gold came to the Indian camp courtesy the women's kabaddi team. In the final, the Indian Mahisa kabaddi team defeated arch-rivals Iran by 37-34 points in a hard-fought battle.
This is the fourth gold medal for the Indian women's kabaddi team at the Asian Games. Since the inception of women's kabaddi at the 2010 Asian Games, the Indian women's kabaddi team had to be content with winning silver only once, losing to Iran in the final at the 2018 Asian Games.
The Indian women's kabaddi team, led by Pushpa Rana, put up a strong fight in the final, but the Iranian girls gave them a tough challenge. The Indian competitors were never able to take a one-sided lead. While Sanju Devi, Nikita and Pooja were able to get red points for India, Iran's defense was very solid. In the first half, the 2018 Asiad gold medalist Iranian women's kabaddi players took points in super tackles. However, at that moment, the Indian girls were in a slightly advantageous position, leading 22-16.
In the second half, several points for Iran came from Sania Naims' red. However, as they could not all-out the Indian team, Iran could not take any advantage of those points. Instead, India maintained a 5-point lead in the 20th minute of the second half. With 8 minutes remaining, Iran's Atena Maladi got the first all-out point, opening a gap of just one point over India. But the rest of the time, the Indian women's kabaddi players managed to keep their red and defense intact and went ahead of Iran to secure the gold.
Sawan Barwal created history in the marathon by winning the silver. This event marked the first time in 44 years that a medal was won at the Asian Games. Earlier, the marathon medal came in 1951 and 1982. Both were on home soil. The silver came in the women's 50m rifle three positions team event with Tillottama Sen, Vidarsha Kochalumkal and Aishe Choksi. In squash, Jyotsna Chinappa and Velavan Senthilkumar settled for a bronze medal in the squash mixed doubles event after losing in the semifinals.