Asian Games 2018: From Vinesh Phogat to Dipa Karmakar, a look at some of India's most promising medal contenders

At the last edition of the Asian Games, India won 57 medals. Just 11 of those were gold while 10 were silver. As we stand at the cusp of another Asian Games, here’s a look at some of India’s most promising medal contenders:

Name: Vinesh Phogat

Age: 23

Discipline (sport): Freestyle Wrestling

Category: 50kg

Past Asian Games performances: Bronze medal in women’s 48kg freestyle wrestling at 2014 Incheon Games

Best performance: Gold medals at 2014 and 2018 Commonwealth Games

Vinesh Phogat buried the ghosts of 2016 Olympics — where she injured her knee during the quarter-final bout against Sun Yanan and had to be stretchered off with her dream of an Olympic medal shattered — by clinching yet another gold at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

Vinesh overcame the burden of her past against Australia’s Rupinder Kaur and Nigeria’s Miesinnei Genesis to seal a place in the gold medal match.

Her domination continued in the final too, where she defeated New Zealand’s Canada’s Jessica Macdonald to clinch the medal.

“She played like she was telling her opponent, ‘This is my gold medal’,” Geeta Phogat, Vinesh’s cousin, said after her sister’s achievement.

Vinesh had lost in the quarter-finals during the 2014 Asian Games, but recovered well to win the bronze medal in the repechage rounds. Still 23 and full of potential, her eyes will now be set on the coveted Asian Games gold medal. Should the medal come, it will be reaffirmation that her preparation for the World Championships later this year is going well.

Name: Heena Sidhu

Age: 28

Sport: Shooting

Category: 10m air pistol

Past Asian Games performance: Silver medallist in women’s team 10m Air Pistol in the 2010 edition;

Bronze medallist in women’s 25m pistol in Incheon 2014

Best performances: Asian Games, women’s team 10m air pistol silver in 2010

The 28-year-old Arjuna Awardee heads into the Asian Games on the back of controversy which surrounded her exclusion from the 10m air pistol mixed team in favour of her younger rival Manu Bhaker.

Heena, who won gold in the 10m air mixed team event at the ISSF World Cup Finals in Delhi in 2017, saw Manu Bhaker picked ahead for the event at the Asian Games.

According to Heena, the NRAI’s selection committee tweaked its policy and flouted the existing selection criteria by including Bhaker in the Asian Games and World Championships squads, despite not meeting the selection requirement.

With the teams finalised for the Indonesian event, Heena has only the 10m air pistol event to focus on in Jakarta. At the same event in the Commonwealth Games earlier this year, Heena won silver behind Bhaker.

What perhaps will help her get motivated to claim her first Asian Games gold, will be the presence of Bhaker and it might bring out the best in her. If Heena indeed clinches gold, it would be made sweeter by the fact that she beat her closest rival to it.​

Name: Manavjit Singh Sandhu

Age: 41

Sport: Shooting

Category: Trap Shooting

Past Asian Games performances: Silver medal in men’s trap shooting at 2006 Doha Asian Games

Best performance: Gold medal in men’s trap shooting at 2006 ISSF World Championships

Manavjit Sandhu has, for long, been a role model for young Indian shooting enthusiasts who aspire to take up the sport professionally. For over the past two decades, the Amritsar-born shooter has won one medal after another at the international level.

Unlike the Commonwealth Games, where Sandhu has won three individual medals in individual trap shooting, success has been slightly harder to come by for the Indian at the Asiad. Barring a silver medal at the 2006 Doha Asian Games, the veteran trap shooter has failed to scale the podium in individual events. However, in the team event, Sandhu has three silvers and one bronze medal.

The 41-year-old is a former world champion, having won the gold medal in the 2006 ISSF World Championships after which he was elevated to No 1 ranking in men’s trap shooting charts. To commemorate Sandhu’s feat, he was awarded the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award in 2006-07, the highest honour given for achievements in sports in India.

Manavjit developed an interest for the sport at a very early age due to his father, Gurbir Singh Sandhu, being an Olympian and an Arjuna Awardee himself.

At the recently-concluded Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, the 41-year-old failed to qualify for the final in the men’s trap shooting event after finishing eighth in qualifying.

Name: Dipa Karmakar

Age: 24

Sport: Gymnastics

Category: Artistic gymnastics

Past Asian Games performances: Fourth-place finish in vault final at 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea

Best performance: Fourth-place finish at Rio Olympics 2016, Gold medal at FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Challenge Cup in Mersin, Turkey, in 2018

Over the past couple of years, gymnastics has ceased to be an alien sport for Indians, and one person who can legitimately lay claim to this shift in mindset is the 4-feet-11-inches athlete from faraway Agartala. Dipa Karmakar burst on the national scene ten years back, winning Junior Nationals in Jalpaiguri.

Two years later, she participated in the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, but failed to grab attention. However, Ashish Kumar’s twin medals — the first by an Indian in Games’ history — served as an inspiration for the youngster. For four years, Dipa, mentored by Bishweshwar Nandi, trained tirelessly in Agartala and Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in New Delhi, and by the time the next edition of Commonwealth Games arrived, Dipa was ready for her date with destiny.

Four years later, in the next edition of CWG in Glasgow’s packed SSE Hydro Arena, Dipa did what no Indian woman gymnast had done before. She performed a perfect Produnova and won a bronze medal.

Produnova, named after Russian gymnast Yelena Produnova, who was the first to perform it successfully in 1999, is the double front somersaults done in a tucked position. It is also referred to as ‘Vault of Death’ for the mortal danger it possesses for its practitioners, and carries the highest D-Score (Difficulty Score).

In an earlier chat with Firstpost, coach Nandi said he got stuck into the vault just months before the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

“I was sure Dipa could pull it off. She landed awkwardly during her first few attempts in practice, but mastered it quite quickly — to an extent that it’s become her signature move,” Nandi had said.

Months later, at the Asian Games in Incheon, Dipa secured a fourth place finish in vault final, making it the best-ever result by a woman gymnast at the quadrennial event. The twin success brought her in national limelight, and slowly but surely, the country began to warm up to Dip and her art.

In 2016, she became the first woman gymnast to qualify for the Olympics, and the first ever to make it to the finals. She pulled off Produnova in the final, and managed a historic fourth-place finish. Her historic feat earned her the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award the same year, and a Padma Shri the next year.

In 2017, while practicing for trials of Asian Championships, Dipa injured her ankle and had to undergo an Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) surgery. It not only forced her to skip the Asian and World Championships, but also ruled her out of action for rest of the year.

Dipa’s lengthy rehabilitation meant she had to give this year’s Commonwealth Games a miss, but India’s top gymnast has announced her return in July this year with a gold at World Challenge Cup in Mersin, Turkey.

Fresh from her rehab and most recent success, she starts the upcoming Asian Games as one of India’s genuine medal prospects. For a girl whose flat foot almost nipped her career in the bud, Dipa Karmakar’s journey — from training on the seat of a scooter to creating history at Olympics — is one of steely resolve and relentless tenacity, and she would like to tick off one oddity in her sterling career: an Asian Games medal.​

Name: Manoj Kumar

Age: 31

Sport: Boxing

Category: 69 kg

Past Asian Games performance: Ousted in the first round in men’s 64 kg

Best performance: Gold medal at 2010 New Delhi Commonwealth Games

“This bronze medal has instilled some confidence into my preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and will also serve me well in the upcoming Asian Games, as well as in the Olympic qualifiers that are to follow,” said Manoj Kumar in an interview given to Firstpost, post the Commonwealth Games 2018, where he grabbed a bronze.

In the boxing circuit, Manoj is not hailed as the most talented of the boxers that India has seen. However, the Haryana-born pugilist has worked really hard to rise up the on ladder of success. What makes him stand out in the Indian boxing scene is his ability to strategise against each opponent he faces.

The India boxing physio at the Commonwealth Games 2018, Ayush Yekhande, had told Firstpost how good Manoj is at studying his opponents. He had said, “He will see what kind of punches the opponent makes, how does he move, and will make his plan accordingly. He is very good at it and more often than not, he gets it right.”

Till date, Manoj’s best performance has been the gold medal he clinched at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi beside clinching the bronze medals at Asian Championships in 2007 and 2013. In 2014 Asian Games, he was ousted in the first round itself. But this time around, he is better focused and has confidence by his side thanks to the bronze medal at Gold Coast.

Name: Hima Das

Age: 18

Sport: Athletics

Category: 400m, 4x400m relay

Past Asian Games performance: Debut

Best performance: Gold in 400m World U-20 Championship

There’s a popular clip of Hima Das. Perhaps you have seen it. In it, the 18-year-old, flaunting yellow streaks in her hair, can be seen bowing before the camera as she is introduced. She toys with the camera, says mon jaai (I want to, in Assamese) before making a gesture which seems to say ‘watch me go’. She flashes a grin, and gets ready to run.

It doesn’t matter that she’s 18, or that she’s at a stage as big as the Commonwealth Games or that she’s started running just under two years ago in the nondescript village of Kandhulimari in Assam.

She goes on to finish sixth, but her popularity grows faster than she reaches the finish line. In just a few months from that heady day at the Gold Coast, Hima is now the toast of the nation, thanks to her victory in 400m at the IAAF World Under-20 Championship 2018, which made her the first Indian woman to win a gold on track at a global event.

At the Asian Games, the eyes of the continent will be trained on her. It’s unlikely that she will be daunted.

Name: Atanu Das

Age: 26

Sport: Archery

Category: Recurve archery

Past Asian Games performance: Debut

Best performance: Silver medal in 2014 Medellin World Cup;

Silver medal at 2014 Wroclaw World Cup in men’s team event

As if to emphasise how fleeting fortunes can be in archery, Olympians Mangal Singh Champia and Jayanta Talukdar failed to make the cut for the 2018 Asian Games squad. However, Atanu Das has shown, time and again, that he is one of India’s best male archers for the last few years.

In the two-day selection trials held in June, Atanu — who had made it to the pre-quarter-finals at the Rio Olympics, finished as the best archer at the Army Sports Institute in Pune.

At Jakarta, World No 19 Atanu will be the only non-Army archer in the four-member men’s recurve archery squad.

However, his confidence will be dented due to a disappointing show at the Berlin World Cup last month. India had sent the same squad to the Berlin World Cup that will go to Jakarta.

Name: Deepika Kumari

Age: 24

Sport: Archery

Category: Recurve archery

Past Asian Games performance: Bronze medal at 2010 Asian Games in recurve team event

Best performance: Gold medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games

Currently ranked No 7 in the world, Deepika Kumari has given a glimpse of her potential time and again. Not only has she been the World No 1 in the past, she has four World Cup Final silver medals — in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2015 — to her name.

She’s already tasted victory this year, having won gold at the Salt Lake City Archery World Cup in June, which also earned her a ticket to the Archery World Cup Finals in Samsun, Turkey. This will be her sixth appearance at the season-ending event.

What made the victory at Salt Lake City special was the fact that her last gold at the stage had come in 2012 at Antalya.

“Finally! That’s what I said when I won this gold medal,” said Deepika. “I was repeating to myself, ‘just do your best, this is your time, just enjoy your game and forget about winning or losing and have fun’,” Deepika told World Archery.org .

Hopefully, at Jakarta too, she will be able to forget about winning and losing and deliver the goods.

With the experienced Bombayla Devi not making the cut, the onus of bringing back a medal will rest squarely on her shoulders.

Name: Shiva Thapa

Age: 24

Sport: Boxing

Category: 60kg

Past Asian Games performance: Quarter-finals (56kg) at Incheon 2014.

Best performances: Bronze at 2015 World Amateur Championships, Doha.

Following the disappointment of missing out on the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games after being pipped by Manish Kaushik, a determined Shiva Thapa will look to bounce back with his maiden Asian Games medal when he marks his second appearance at the quadrennial event that starts on 18 August.

Thapa pulled one back against Kaushik in the Asian Games 60kg trials that took place in New Delhi on 29 June, defeating the CWG silver medallist to earn his berth at the Indonesia event.

The Assamese pugilist of Nepalese descent didn’t quite have a memorable run at the 2014 Asiad at Incheon, losing to Mario Fernandez in the 56kg category quarter-finals. However, Thapa has since added a number of achievements to what is already an impressive CV, including a bronze at the 2015 World Amateur Championships — which made him only the third Indian to win a medal at the prestigious event.

A maiden Asian Games medal will go a long way in boosting Thapa’s confidence before he trains his sights on Tokyo.

Name: Ramkumar Ramanathan

Age: 23

Sport: Tennis

Category: Singles, Doubles

Past Asian Games performance: Debut

Best performances: Runner up at Halle of Fame Open 2018

Ramkumar Ramanathan heads to the Asian Games, which takes place later this month, on a high, having made tremendous progress in recent weeks.

The tennis player from Chennai currently is enjoying his best-ever ranking of 111 on the ATP charts after a runner-up finish at the Hall of Fame Open. Reaching the summit clash of the event made him the first Indian to do so in seven years, and Ramanathan missed out on becoming the first from his country to win an ATP World Tour singles title since Leander Paes in 1998 after losing to World No 33 Steve Johnson in the final.

Ramanathan, who had dominated headlines during the 2017 Antalya Open when he beat then-world No 8 Dominic Thiem, has said that he would love to partner with veteran player Leander Paes on Asian Games debut. Ramanathan had last paired with Paes during the Pune Challenger in 2016, and has credited his senior for crucial inputs during his run at the Halle of Fame Open. ​