NEW DELHI: India’s 85-medal haul at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games was its secondbest finish, but the headline numbers don’t reveal everything.A sport-by-sport audit by TOI shows that 137 Indian athletes across 16 disciplines returned empty-handed, exposing persistent gaps in the country’s medal ambitions.India’s pruned-down 495-member contingent competed across 36 sport disciplines and finished fourth with 21 gold, 27 silver and 37 bronze medals.Yet 137 athletes across 16 disciplines won nothing.Another 64 athletes across six sports managed six bronze — one each in kurash, mixed martial arts, rowing, sepaktakraw, soft tennis and wushu. The zero-medal list included canoeing (19 athletes), cycling (14), equestrian (7), esports (15), fencing (20), gymnastics (1), judo (3), karate (2), rugby sevens (13), sport climbing (2), surfing (4), swimming (12), taekwondo (3), tennis (7), teqball (3) and volleyball (12). The six-bronze group comprised kurash (6 athletes), MMA (2), rowing (22), sepaktakraw (21), soft tennis (6) and wushu (7).In all, 201 athletes accounted for just six bronze medals across the 22 disciplines mentioned above. In other prominent sports with sizable athlete numbers, table tennis sent 10 athletes and returned with one bronze and badminton’s 20-member contingent managed one bronze in the men’s team event. Together, the two sent 37 athletes and produced only two bronze.India contested in 259 medal events in AichiNagoya and won medals in just 20, a 7.7% eventpodium conversion rate. Of 356 medals available in which India featured, the nation collected 85, a conversion rate of only 23.9%.
The spending breakdown
The govt spent Rs 259.69 crore on 19 sports as part of the overall total expenditure during the current Asian Games cycle (Nov 2023-Aug 2026), led by badminton (Rs 49.26 cr), cycling track (Rs 35.9 cr), fencing (Rs 28.2 cr), table tennis (Rs 25.3 cr), tennis (Rs 22.4 cr) and canoe/kayak (Rs 20.1 cr). Other allocations included rowing (Rs 13.8 cr,) swimming (Rs 10.8 cr), gymnastics (Rs 10.49 cr), judo (Rs 8.05 cr), wushu (Rs 7.8 cr), volleyball (Rs 6.5 cr), sepaktakraw (Rs 5.7 cr), equestrian (Rs 3.7 cr), rugby (Rs 3.63 cr), surfing (Rs 2.9 cr), karate (Rs 1.99 cr), soft tennis (Rs 1.6 cr) and kurash (Rs 1.6 cr).On three sports – MMA, eSports and sport climbing, the govt spent no money. As per the govt’s own estimates, it spent approximately Rs 703 cr across 30 disciplines during the Nov 2023-Aug 2026 preparation cycle. The Rs 703 cr included about Rs 118 cr for domestic training and national coaching camps, Rs 40 cr for overseas training, Rs 252 cr for international competition exposure, Rs 89 cr for equipment, Rs 86 cr for foreign coaches/support staff and Rs 118 cr for other expenses, including Indian experts, championships, competitions in India, grassroots and coach development.Also, a total of 427 athletes who were part of the govt’s various programmes and schemes participated in the Games, including 77 athletes from Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) Core group, 78 from TOPS Development 78, 48 from Target Asian Games Group (TAGG), 65 Khelo India Athlete (KIA), 25 from National Centre of Excellence (NCoE) and 134 from National Coaching Camps (NCCs).The Glasgow comparison is revealing, though not like-for-like. India had 122 athletes and para-athletes in 10 sports at the curtailed 2026 Commonwealth Games and won 39 medals — 13 gold, 17 silver and nine bronze — also finishing fourth. The Asian Games contingent was 4.06 times larger, but its 85-medal haul was only 2.18 times Glasgow’s. Medal efficiency was 17.2 per 100 athletes in Aichi-Nagoya against 32 in Glasgow.The message is that at this level, the medal base remains concentrated.For a country investing Rs 703 cr across a multi-year cycle, the next challenge is clear: turn wider participation, exposure and support into wider podium conversion.
