Continental shifts: On Jakarta Asiad

Continental shifts: On Jakarta Asiad

News:

1. The Asian Games begin in the Indonesian cities of Jakarta and Palembang, providing Indian sport a bracing opportunity to prove its composite progress at the global level.

Important facts:

2. After giving brilliant performance in the last edition (2014) at South Korea’s Incheon, China also secured the third highest number of gold medals in the 2016 Olympics at Rio de Janeiro.

3. South Korea and Japan, which also finished in the top three at Incheon, were among the leading ten at the Olympics.

4. In the last edition, India finished eighth, with a tally of 57 medals, including 11 golds.

5. In badminton, India has never gone beyond the bronze at the Asian Games.

6. All the same, athletics has brought the country more than half its golds across Asiads.

7. Now, much depends on how the Athletics Federation of India handles the Nirmala Sheoran issue.

8. The Asian women’s 400 m champion had stayed away from national camps.

9. The women’s and men’s hockey teams have had an encouraging run leading up to the Asian Games, and they would look to make a statement in style two years ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.

10. India won 5 in tennis in 2014, including a gold.

11. Indonesia 2018 will provide a glimpse of the changing profile of sport, with eSports debuting as a demonstration sport.