Asian Games 2026: Indian men's kabaddi team caps off perfect group stage; reaches semifinals
The Indian men's kabaddi team continued their dominant run at the ongoing Asian Games at Aichi-Nagoya in Japan, beating Chinese Taipei to advance to the semifinals on Thursday
Aichi-Nagoya [Japan], September 24 (ANI): The Indian men's kabaddi team continued their dominant run at the ongoing Asian Games at Aichi-Nagoya in Japan, beating Chinese Taipei to advance to the semifinals on Thursday.
The defending champions ended their group stage campaign with four wins in four matches. They beat Chinese Taipei 37-21 in their Group A match.
In the first half, India was dominant, initially maintaining a 17-7 lead. They ended the first half at 23-11, with a standout performer in Arjun Deshwal.
In the second half, India continued to dominate, winning the match 37-21 to book a place in the final four.
Now, India stand one win away from defending their title.
On Wednesday, India registered a dominant 48-25 victory over Bangladesh.
India had started the campaign thrashing Japan 49-24, before beating South Korea 63-31.
Since the debut of the sport in men's team competition at the 1990 Asian Games, India has won gold at eight out of nine editions, except for a bronze medal finish in the 2018 edition in Australia. In the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games edition, India beat Iran 33-29 to capture the gold medal in the men's competition.
Earlier, Roshibina Devi secured her second consecutive silver medal at the Asian Games, losing to China's Zhang Xiaoyu in the women's sanda 60 kg final at Aichi-Nagoya on Thursday. Earlier, the pairing of Satnam Singh and Salman Khan secured a bronze medal in the men's double sculls final on Thursday.
Roshibina, also a 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games silver medalist, lost both rounds by a 0-5 scoreline, and the Chinese opponent sealed the match 2-0, as per ESPN.
Roshibina enjoyed an impressive run in Japan, which included beating 2023 world champion Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy of Vietnam.
On Wednesday, Roshibina defeated Indonesia’s Thania Kusumaningtyas 2-0 in the semi-final to secure her place in the title clash.
This is India's 14th medal at the ongoing event, having already won a gold, adding the sixth silver to the tally. India has also won seven bronze medals so far.
Coming to rowing, Satnam-Salman clocked a time of 6:13.25, just 3.48 seconds short of China's gold medalists Yi Xudi / Nie Yide and 2.76 seconds behind the silver medalists Mekhrojbek Mamatkulov / Pavel Sorin, as per ESPN.
Satnam-Salman maintained the second position at 500m, 1000m and 1500m but fell away towards the end. At one point, they were just half a second behind the Chinese pair.
In men's singles sculls competitions, Balraj Panwar missed out on a medal, finishing fourth. Balraj managed to stay second at the 500m, 1000m and 1500m marks, but later found himself outdone by Shakhboz Kholmurzaev of Uzbekistan and Tatsuya Sakurama of Japan during the final 500 m stretch, and he lost the medal.
Balraj maintained a five-second lead over Sakurama ahead of the final stretch but finished eight seconds short of him, clocking a time of 6:54.80, 15 seconds behind the gold medalist Zhiwei Deng of China. (ANI)
